An editorial here several weeks ago focused on cancer’s link to alcohol and that doctors and researchers currently are studying gut health in their probe of cancer’s causes.

“There’s no question we’re missing something” was the comment of a California gastrointestinal oncologist.

The doctor was lamenting about the cancer mystery of why cancer rates have fallen for older adults in recent years, but gastrointestinal cancers, across the globe, are increasing among people under 50.

Meanwhile, in our Jan. 15 editorial, it was noted that alcohol consumption is considered the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity, and that the link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk has been established for at least seven types of cancer.

But there is much more to think about on the cancer front, and the Jan. 24 edition of the Wall Street Journal sought to point the way in an article under the headline “Scientists are divided on moderate drinking.”

“Scientists don’t agree on . . . whether smaller amounts of alcohol are dangerous or could actually convey some health benefit,” the Journal wrote.

The newspaper continued: “One committee of scientists said . . . one drink a day for both men and women raises the risk of death from several alcohol-related illnesses or injuries. The other group said . . . moderate drinking was linked to a lower risk of dying overall compared with not drinking at all.”

Perhaps both sides could be convincing with strong arguments supporting their thinking.

Scientists’ findings released in January indicated that men and women in the U.S. have a one in 1,000 risk of dying from alcohol use if they consume more than seven drinks a week. The findings went on to allege that the risk increases to one in 100 if they consume more than nine drinks a week.

It’s OK to familiarize oneself with the various arguments touting one position or another, and perhaps embrace one of the positions put forth. However, at the same time it is important to accept the fact that the issue of drinking-and-cancer is complex because of the myriad variables that exist.

Just when a set of facts emerges to seemingly confirm one’s basis of thought on the issue, a couple of new significant findings surface to debunk that which had seemed so logical and true before.

But perhaps Timothy Rebbeck, a cancer prevention researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, presented the most important point at this stage of the ongoing investigation and fact-finding exercise.

Rebbeck said this:

“Everyone will have to start thinking about their own level of risk that they’re willing to accept. And some people are going to ignore it altogether.”

That’s human nature and none of that is necessarily wrong, because it will inject new variables into consideration.

“It is a big year for booze, both for the people who drink it and the companies that make it” is how the Journal’s Jan. 24 article began. “U.S. officials are set to sift through competing science to decide how much is too much.”

Considering the volume of information that lies ahead of them, they might need a few drinks to settle on whatever might be their eventual conclusions.

— Sun-Gazette, Williamsport