Doctors said it’s most important to pay attention to the quantity or concentration of alcohol, as opposed to whether it’s liquor, beer or wine, since the alcohol molecules themselves are responsible for raising a person’s cancer risk. According to a study last year, about 83% of yearly alcohol-related cancer deaths could be prevented if adults lowered their consumption to within those limits. While some research has found that a single month of sobriety — a dry January, say — can lead to weight loss and improved blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the story is less optimistic when it comes to cancer risk, Carr said.
Deaths from the seven alcohol-related cancers increased among men in 47 states, and in 16 states for women. A January report from the former U.S. surgeon general said alcoholic drinks should come with cancer warning labels. Research at that time linked drinking to cancers of the head and neck (including the mouth, throat, voice box and esophagus) and liver cancers.
No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
Furthermore, substantial the link between alcohol and suicide epidemiological evidence (as reviewed in this article) accrued over the past 50 years has shown that alcohol contributes to the development of these cancers. Furthermore, patients with liver cancer resulting from cirrhosis typically have reduced their alcohol consumption by the time they develop liver cancer (Aricò et al. 1994). This difficulty results from the fact that, as discussed earlier, the association between alcohol consumption and liver cancer is only indirect. One of the strengths of this meta-analysis is that the investigators performed a separate analysis of studies that also reported estimates adjusted for tobacco use, which contributes to various forms of cancer, prominently lung cancer. The RR indicates the strength of the relationship between alcohol consumption and a given type of cancer.
Regular alcohol consumption can have numerous consequences, beneficial or detrimental, on the health of the drinker. It may take years for the risks of cancer to return to those of never drinkers, but it is never too late to stop drinking and reduce the risks. 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). NIAAA defines heavy alcohol drinking as having four or more drinks on any day or eight or more drinks per week for women and five or more drinks on any day or 15 or more drinks per week for men.
How Can the Public Be Made Aware of the Cancer Risk From Alcohol?
- Consequently, any definite risk-benefit assessment for moderate alcohol drinking requires much more far-reaching analyses that are beyond the scope of this article but that in the future may provide important information from a public health perspective.
- Two studies from Italy (Barra et al. 1990; Bosetti et al. 2000) found that people who consumed only wine had greater risks of oral, pharyngeal, and esophageal cancer compared with people who consumed wine as well as distilled spirits or beer after adjusting for the overall amount of alcohol consumed.
- You should contact the study team with any questions.
- This means that when alcohol is administered together with other known cancer-inducing agents (i.e., carcinogens), it promotes or accelerates cancer development.
- This alcohol amount is found in 12 fluid oz of beer, 5 fluid oz of wine, and 1.5 fluid oz of 80-proof distilled spirits.
However, they may not reflect the typical serving sizes people may encounter in daily life. Alcohol is the common term for ethanol or ethyl alcohol, a chemical substance found in alcoholic beverages such as beer, hard cider, malt liquor, wines, and distilled spirits (liquor). A parent, a therapist, a sponsor, an attorney – they can virtually verify that at anytime the wearer is alcohol-free.
Effects of Combined Alcohol and Tobacco Use
For example, when the investigators considered only studies reporting RRs not adjusted for tobacco use, the pooled RR for lung cancer at the highest level of alcohol consumption was 6.30. A RR greater than 1.0 means that alcohol consumption at the level indicated increased the risk for that type of cancer. Similarly, for certain cancers, there were only a few cases with certain levels of alcohol consumption (e.g., high levels of alcohol consumption in female breast cancer patients). The results of eight appropriate studies were pooled to determine the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer at all sites combined. In contrast, no significant relationship existed between alcohol consumption and the risk for pancreas, endometrial, and bladder cancers. The increased risk of cancer among heavy drinkers is primarily attributed to the alcohol (chemically referred to as ethanol) in alcoholic beverages.
- The International Agency on Cancer Research, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified alcohol as a carcinogen in 1987.
- Concurrent tobacco use, which is common among drinkers, enhances alcohol’s effects on the risk for cancers of the upper digestive and respiratory tract.
- There likely are additional cancers linked to drinking alcohol, Dr. Orlow says, but more well-designed studies (epidemiological and other) are needed to prove that alcohol is a contributing risk factor.
- Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including the most common cancer types, such as bowel cancer and female breast cancer.
- U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has issued an advisory calling for updated warnings on alcoholic beverages, cautioning that the consumption of alcohol heightens the risk of several types of cancer.
- For laryngeal cancer, tobacco use also substantially influences the risk, though a strong association with alcohol consumption, indicated by a RR of 3.24, remained even when considering only studies presenting adjusted estimates.
Alcohol consumption is a well-established risk factor for certain cancers. Learn how these effective alcohol 1960s Music and Drugs policies work to protect people from alcohol-related harms, including increasing the risk of cancer. It is estimated most of these deaths may have been avoided if all adults had followed the recommended limits on alcohol use in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans instead of drinking above them.
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“The enzyme that metabolizes alcohol is lower in some ethnic groups than others, so acetaldehyde, the carcinogen in alcohol, is higher in these people,” Jani said. “We know that even small amounts of alcohol can affect the breast tissue,” Figueiredo said. “The carcinogenic effect probably isn’t affecting you right away in your younger age, but as you continue to drink as you age, this carcinogen has an accumulative effect on the body,” Jani said. In men in this age group, alcohol-related cancer deaths rose by more than 1% every year between 2007 and 2021. Utah remained the state with the lowest alcohol-related cancer deaths.
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For laryngeal cancer, tobacco use also substantially influences the risk, though a strong association with alcohol consumption, indicated by a RR of 3.24, remained even when considering only studies presenting adjusted estimates. This finding indicates that alcohol itself only weakly increases the risk for lung cancer and that lung cancer risk primarily results from tobacco use, which is common in heavy drinkers. For all these types of cancer, significant increases in risk existed even at the lowest consumption level studied here (i.e., 25 grams of alcohol, or two standard drinks per day). To estimate the effect of alcohol consumption on the risk for each type of cancer studied, based on the pooled data from all studies included in the meta-analysis, the investigators used meta-regression models—statistical models developed specifically for such analyses (Corrao et al. 1999, 2000).
Alcohol consumption was responsible for about 5%—or nearly 100,000—of the 1.8 million cancer cases diagnosed in the United States in 2019 and about 4%—or nearly 25,000—of the 600,000 US cancer deaths that year (8). The National Toxicology Program has listed consumption of alcoholic beverages as a known human carcinogen in its Report on Carcinogens since the ninth edition, in 2000. Get inspired by other people living with cancer. Clinical trials are carefully controlled scientific studies that evaluate how well investigational or modified medicines may treat or prevent diseases in people.
Yearly cancer deaths linked to alcohol have doubled in the United States over the last three decades, rising from just under 12,000 a year in 1990 to more than 23,000 a year in 2021, new research finds. Measurement methods for alcohol use for evaluation of interventions and guideline approaches to alcohol and cancer are not complete Natural experiments concerning programs and policies related to alcohol and cancer need further evaluation Significant research gaps across the cancer control continuum remain, especially concerning how best to increase awareness and limit alcohol exposure.
Why does drinking alcohol raise cancer risk?
It is possible, however, that for breast cancer and other types of cancer related to disturbances in female hormone levels, alcohol may act by altering the metabolism and blood levels of female hormones, such as estrogen (Longnecker 1994). These values indicate only a weak association of alcohol with these types of cancer, which may possibly result from residual bias in the analysis or from confounding factors, such as diet. Over the past few decades, however, several animal studies have indicated that alcohol can have a cocarcinogenic, or cancer-promoting, effect.
Although Alcohol disorder treatment it is well established that alcohol can cause cancer, this fact is still not widely known to the public in most countries. In the EU, cancer is the leading cause of death – with a steadily increasing incidence rate – and the majority of all alcohol-attributable deaths are due to different types of cancers. The risk of developing cancer increases substantially the more alcohol is consumed. Ethanol (alcohol) causes cancer through biological mechanisms as the compound breaks down in the body, which means that any beverage containing alcohol, regardless of its price and quality, poses a risk of developing cancer. These factors, along with co-exposures to environmental contaminants, play a pivotal role in determining the severity of alcohol-related risks.
The study also found that people who believed drinking alcohol increased the risk of heart disease were more aware of the alcohol–cancer risk than those who were unsure or believed drinking lowered the effect on heart risk. This analysis found that alcohol consumption of at least 50 grams (i.e., 4 standard drinks) per day significantly increased the risk of developing any type of cancer. Some studies show that drinking three or more drinks that contain alcohol per day increases the risk of stomach and pancreatic cancers. In terms of risk assessment, this meta-analysis confirms that high levels of alcohol consumption (i.e., more than four drinks per day) result in a substantial risk of cancer development at several sites. Epidemiologic studies have shown that people who drink alcohol are at higher risk of certain cancers than those who do not drink alcohol and that the more someone drinks, the higher the risk of these cancers. This drinking pattern is responsible for the majority of alcohol-attributable breast cancers in women, with the highest burden observed in countries of the European Union (EU).
However, the number of cases of these cancers thought to be prevented by alcohol consumption is much lower than the total number of cancer cases attributable to alcohol consumption. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen (cancer-causing substance) in 1987 due to sufficient evidence that it causes cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, and liver in people. Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks (men), or four or more drinks (women), in about 2 hours. “So, when we talk about possible so-called safer levels of alcohol consumption or about its protective effects, we are ignoring the bigger picture of alcohol harm in our Region and the world. Disadvantaged and vulnerable populations have higher rates of alcohol-related death and hospitalization, as harms from a given amount and pattern of drinking are higher for poorer drinkers and their families than for richer drinkers in any given society.
The new report may raise questions for some people about the long-term damage of drinking, safe limits and how to reverse the negative health effects. In addition to proposing warning labels on alcoholic drinks, Murthy suggests reassessing the recommended limits for alcohol consumption in the U.S. Accordingly, one must determine whether moderate alcohol consumption results in an overall favorable or unfavorable risk-benefit balance for the individual drinker or an entire population. Two studies from Italy (Barra et al. 1990; Bosetti et al. 2000) found that people who consumed only wine had greater risks of oral, pharyngeal, and esophageal cancer compared with people who consumed wine as well as distilled spirits or beer after adjusting for the overall amount of alcohol consumed. From a public health view, this synergism implies that over 75 percent of cancers of the upper digestive and respiratory tract in developed countries are attributable to alcohol and tobacco. Researchers have known about the relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and the risk for esophageal and other upper digestive and respiratory tract cancers since the beginning of the last century.