This is the short edition of More or Less.

First broadcast on the BBC World Service.

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use

go to BBCWorldService.com slash podcasts.

Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service.

I'm Tim Harford.

First, to your local doctor's surgery

or more specifically to loyal listener Michael Greene's doctor's surgery.

He got in touch with us via More or Less at bbc.co.uk

after spotting a statistic in the waiting room

published by Britain's National Health Service, the NHS.

I came across this like a colored department of health leaflet

and was going through the warnings about drinking too much

and it came across what to me was quite a scary warning

which was that two life glasses of wine a day

or more could make you three times more likely

to get mouth cancer.

I wondered if gosh, could it be that bad

and what evidence was there.

Before we get to the question of evidence,

let's think about what the NHS leaflet is actually saying

...