Alcohol While Smoking Increases Cancer Risk? Health Note On Pipedia

I had not heard this particular view of how drinking alcohol while smoking increases cancer risk. What I was taught back in college is that alcohol is a "cancer promoter" which exacerbates the risk associated with carcinogen exposure.
I generally do not drink alcohol while smoking, as I do not like to have that particular set of competing flavors. Now I have another reason to stick to water or cold coffee.

PS: I would think beer is still fine. The alcohol content is low and water content is high. Beer is another drink I avoid while smoking in order to avoid flavor competition - when someone says "alcohol" I tend to think of strong drink.

Yep ... I've heard this before but decided that some things were just meant to be:

I usually drink beer while smoking my pipe or cigars, hopefully that is less harmful. I think it would be better, due to the lower alchohol content. To bad they weren't more specific about the alchohol content. Now I am curious, I might have to research this a little. Thanks for the info.

Yes, it is true. Looks like zero to one drink is rational as is smoking one to three bowls a day. Go beyond this and you are in the "Red Zone." Here is the best "science" that exists on pipe smokers, an exhaustive study relating to pipe smoking and worth bookmarking or downloading:
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/96/11/853.long
Here is a summary:
Health risks associated with cigar smoking are lower than those for cigarette smoking, reflecting a lower exposure to smoke toxicants (see my earlier post here). The same holds true for pipe smoking, as a 2004 American Cancer Society study documented (abstract here).
Dr. S. Jane Henley and colleagues examined data from the Cancer Society’s Second Cancer Prevention Survey, which enrolled participants in 1982. They compared deaths among exclusive men pipe smokers with those among never tobacco users over the next 18 years. They also considered the number of pipes smoked each day, duration of smoking, and how much smokers inhaled. The results are expressed as hazard ratios (HRs, similar to relative risks); a confidence interval spanning 1.0 means the risk elevation was not statistically significant.
The table shows that pipe smokers had small to moderate elevations for several smoking-related diseases, with the risk for laryngeal cancer remarkably high.
The Cancer Society’s analysis of pipe smoking was thorough (in stark contrast to its consideration of smokeless tobacco, discussed here), producing a wealth of insights. For example, the overall HR for lung cancer among pipe smokers was 5.0, but there was a distinct gradient related to the number of pipes smoked per day. The HR was 2.0 with one to three pipes, but it increased to 7.7 for 11+ pipes per day. There was a similar trend with longer duration of smoking, and inhalation played a major role. The lung cancer HR was 2.9 for pipe smokers who didn’t inhale, but 11.1 for those reporting moderate or deep inhalation.
Other diseases showed similar trends with dose, duration and inhalation, although some results weren’t statistically significant.

http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/2012/08/pipe-smoking-and-health.html
Dr. Henley also illustrated that alcohol is a powerful risk factor for cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx and esophagus. Pipe smokers who consumed less than one alcoholic drink per day had no increased risk for these cancers. Those consuming 1-3 drinks had an HR of 4.7 (CI = 1.8 – 11.9), while those consuming 4+ drinks had much higher risk (HR = 15, CI = 5.9 – 39). Never smokers consuming 4+ drinks also had elevated risk for these cancers (HR = 2.3, CI = 1.2 – 4.3).
“These risks,” according to the researchers, “were generally smaller than those associated with cigarette smoking and similar to or larger than those associated with cigar smoking.” This confirms one of the tenets of tobacco harm reduction: it’s the smoke that kills, and the risk is proportionate to how much, how long and how deeply smoke is inhaled.

Wow, I guess I'm in the crusty codger group of, "It's tobacco, not health food. If you're a health nut, you should probably avoid it". There was a similar thread recently, regarding pipe smoking and health concerns, where I even mentioned, "And the first one to bring up the ' alcohol and smoking' crap can go stuff it". To my way of thinking, enjoy your damned tobacco and booze, or obsess about your health. The two don't really go together well. No offense to you, Michael. It's just something that makes me grumpy every time it's brought up.

I always figured smoking 3 packs a day would kill a person after 40 years.
So I figure if I smoke an average of one bowl a day (more in warm months, less in the winter), that smoking the pipe would kill me in 60 years (worst case).
I'm 48. I'm going to die of something other than smoking. In other words, at a certain age it doesn't matter what one does. As to smoking - I'm already there.

"It's just something that makes me grumpy every time it's brought up."
Not sure why one would get bent, it is just reality. Why so serious?

Not bent, Jack. Just positing one man's opinion on the whole situation.
EDIT: I suppose everyone on the forum has at least one pet peeve; that just happens to be one of mine.

From what I see, there is a clear path in this, where the health risk of pipe smoking, based on current science, is essentially zeroed-out, setting aside laryngeal cancer. It makes sense to know the science of all this as opposed to checking reason at the door. I get the whole "live fast, die young" "let the chips fall where they may" approach. Been there, done that. At this point I determined to take, what for me is, the most reasonable approach to all this. As a practical matter, I don't drink anymore, and I smoke less than three bowls a day. I do have a few pet peeves but they are not pipe related. For the younger members, I think they should make informed decisions, especially if they are married and have children. I don't see the smoking mortality time-horizon as being 60 years as suggested above. 48 is young in my book. Since I am older, I do agree that I am almost certain to die of something completely unrelated to pipe smoking.

Putting it in layman's terms, alcohol strips the oral mucosa (gums, cheeks, lips, tongue, palate, throat) of its protective coating, making it more receptive to harmful bacteria and chemicals. Moderate-to-heavy drinkers have greater statistical probability for developing gum disease and various oral cancers, whether or not they smoke. Smoking on top of drinking escalates the probability by introducing carcinogenic chemicals to an environment whose natural protection has been reduced.

Jackswilling: What I was saying is that, at worst, I don't think there's science suggesting 200 bowls of pipe tobacco per year, not inhaled, would lead to cancer at an average rate of LESS than 60 years. Then I'm just saying, at age 48, I have no desire to live to be 108, and believe the odds are that something else will kill me before pipe smoking does. Thus I discount my tobacco risk to ZERO. I think you and I are actually in 100% agreement, just saying it differently.
Cheers! :puffpipe:

^^^ Makes sense.

15,263 current and former exclusive pipe smokers, and 124,044 non-smokers who participated in the study.

BTW, why would a man be afraid to be straight-up about their smoking habits? I just don't see that as a factor.

Why not read the study in the Oxford Journal?

My grandfather was one. Life-long smoker of cigs, pipes, and cigars. Made it to 83. Never asked him why he inhaled his pipe, but he did mention that he did so.

This news has been around for a few years.
Doesn't come across as news to me, nor does it seem to trump common sense.
I find it intriguing that some tribes actually use/used smoke to heal wounds faster. It would be useful to study cancer data amongst those tribes, although modern medicine or "studies" don't really exist in that regard.