 Recently, the IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the official World Health Organization body that decides what is and is not cancer-causing, concluded that alcoholic beverages, all alcoholic beverages, are to be considered carcinogenic to humans. Most recent research has focused on acetaldehyde, the first and most toxic alcohol metabolite as a cancer-causing agent. There's that bacteria in our mouths oxidize alcohol into this carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which we then swallow. There's convincing evidence that alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast cancer, but most of the data derived from studies that focused on the effect of kind of moderate or high alcohol intakes, while little was known about like-alcohol drinking, like up to like a drink a day. Hence this new meta-analysis of studies that compared light drinkers to non-drinkers, and found a moderate but significant association with breast cancer based on the results of more than 100 studies. They estimated that about 5,000 breast cancer deaths a year are attributable to light drinking, meaning nearly 5,000 women that died of breast cancer maybe wouldn't have if they just would have stayed away from alcohol completely, leading to an editorial in the medical journal Breast that concluded, women who consume alcohol chronically have an increased risk for breast cancer that is dose-dependent, but without threshold, meaning there's apparently no level of alcohol consumption that doesn't raise breast cancer risk, at least a little, so no safe threshold. Any level of alcohol consumption appears to increase the risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer. For example, the Harvard Nurses' Health study found that even consumption of less than a single drink per day may be associated with a modest increase in risk. Forget a single drink, what about a single sip? A new study found that even holding a teaspoon of hard liquor in your mouth for 5 seconds and then spitting it out results in carcinogenic concentrations of acetaldehyde produced from the alcohol in the oral cavity instantly after a small sip of a strong alcoholic beverage, and the exposure continues for about 10 minutes after spitting it out, and you didn't even drink it. Even alcohol-containing mouthwash can give you a carcinogenic spike. The researchers conclude all in all there's a rather low margin of safety in the use of alcohol-containing mouthwash. Typical use will reach the concentration range above which adverse effects are to be expected, until the establishment of a more solid scientific basis for a threshold level of acetaldehyde and saliva prudent public health policy would recommend generally refraining from using alcohol in such products. So why isn't the same recommendation made for alcoholic beverages? Well, as the Harvard paper concludes, individuals will need to weigh the risks of light to moderate alcohol use on breast cancer development against the benefits for heart disease prevention to make the best personal choice regarding alcohol consumption. They're talking about the famous J-shaped curve. While smoking is bad and more smoking is worse and exercising is good and more exercising is better, for alcohol there appears to be this beneficial effect of small doses. A six-pack a day increases overall mortality, but so does tea-totaling. The number one killer of women isn't breast cancer, it's heart disease, and a drink a day reduces the risk of heart disease. Why just reduce the risk of heart disease, so when you may nearly eliminate the risk of heart disease completely with a healthy diet? So a plant-based diet that excludes certain plant-based beverages may be the best for overall survival.