Well to be fair, there’s probably a lot of people who have no fucking clue what sudo is, but are getting instructions from stack overflow err, AI. Not that this warning would necessarily stop them, but there was an attempt.

It’s a MS issue, not isolated

I really liked your neighbourhood in Athens.

There it is. This whole thing was too suspicious

I tried not to conflate absolute and relative risk. The numbers I was going with came from the link I posted, which was not from a science journalist, but from the US National Cancer Institute. Also, note that the comment you replied to was more about an off the cuff comparison of the risk between CT scans and drinking alcohol. It wasn’t meant to present scientific rigour.

Below is directly from the linked article, emphasis mine:

Using data from Australia, recalculated using US standard drinks, the recent Surgeon General’s Advisory reports that

• among 100 women who have less than one drink per week, about 17 will develop an alcohol-related cancer
• among 100 women who have one drink a day, 19 will develop an alcohol-related cancer
• among 100 women who have two drinks a day, about 22 will develop an alcohol-related cancer

This means that women who have one drink a day have an absolute increase in the risk of an alcohol-related cancer of 2 per 100, and those who have two drinks a day an absolute increase of 5 per 100, compared with those who have less than one drink a week. For men, the number of alcohol-related cancers per 100 is 10 for those who have less than one drink a week, 11 for those who have one drink a day (an increase of 1 per 100), and 13 for those who have two drinks a day (an increase of 3 per 100).

I’m not a statistics expert, so very possibly bad wording or outright errors ahead.

Versus non-drinkers, 1 drink a day increases the absolute risk of getting cancer by 2% 2 drinks a day increases the absolute risk of getting cancer by 5%

(https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet)

Unfortunately, I’m having trouble finding the absolute risk increase for a single CT scan… But I think it is around 0.1%. This is based on the recent JAMA study that said that the scans from a given year (about 93 million of them) would it in 103000 future cancers developing.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2832778

A couple of takeaways: on an individual basis the risk of developing cancer from a CT scan is pretty low. On a population scale, its pretty damn high. Also though the increased chance is low (especially compared to the numbers above for alcohol) it’s actually pretty significant if you consider it takes just one scan.

Ballpark, you might be talking the equivalent of 3 drinks a month?

It’s an interesting question. I actually turned down a CT scan recently because it wasn’t clear what the benefits of knowing the results would be, versus this extra risk.

Party pooper: Consuming alcohol significantly increases your chance of getting cancer. To the point that it compares with asbestos, radiation and tobacco.

https://www.partnershipagainstcancer.ca/topics/alcohol-policies/background-statistics/

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health

https://www.aacr.org/patients-caregivers/progress-against-cancer/americans-largely-unaware-of-link-between-consumption-of-alcoholic-beverages-and-risk-of-cancer/

https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/alcohol-use-cancer-risk

A recent study counters that info a little bit (says there isn’t a link for some cancers) but it’s important to note that the study is still disputed. Also, cancer is on top of liver and heart disease, dementia and many other things that alcohol is known to directly increase.

You should do your best to reduce your alcohol consumption or cut it out completely - if you care about your health.