“The high prevalence of cancer survivors engaged in hazardous drinking highlights the need for immediate interventions,” they wrote. And although people who identified as Hispanic were less likely than White participants to report drinking alcohol, those who did drink were more likely to drink heavily. Since women rarely drink alcohol in China, the main analysis focused on men, a third of whom drank regularly (most weeks in the past year). Because these alleles are allocated at birth and are independent of other lifestyle factors (such as smoking), they can be used as a proxy for alcohol intake, to assess how alcohol consumption affects disease risks.
Alcohol Use Linked To Over 740,000 Cancer Cases Last Year, New Study Says
To conduct the study, the researchers used data from more than 15,000 people with a history of cancer who were participating in the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program. The physical and biological links between alcohol use can cancer risk aren’t well understood, but several processes are likely at work. Overall, the percentage of Americans who say they occasionally drink alcohol has stayed between 60 and 70% since the late 1930s, without any noticeable decline in recent years, according to polling by the Gallup organization. “I think the perception often is, if you can fit it in a glass, it’s one drink,” Dr. LoConte said. But studies have shown that people pouring their own wine or spirits at home tend to underestimate the amount they’re actually consuming. When the researchers analyzed moderate drinking further, they found that 41,300 of those cases could be attributed to light drinking, or consumption of 10 grams or less per day.
In people who produce the defective enzyme, acetaldehyde builds up when they drink alcohol. But most Americans aren’t aware of this link, thanks to seemingly contradictory research and mixed messaging from public health experts. A study published in 2023 found widespread mistaken beliefs that the risk varies by beverage type, with the lowest cancer risk assigned to wine. Another study published in 2021 showed that nearly 70% of people did not even know alcoholic ketoacidosis smell that alcohol was a cancer risk factor. The types of cancer with the most cases linked to alcohol use were cancers of the esophagus and liver and, in women, breast cancer, the researchers reported July 13 in The Lancet Oncology. Eastern Asia and central and eastern Europe had the highest numbers of alcohol-related cancers in proportion to their populations, while northern Africa and western Asia had the lowest.
- To conduct the study, the researchers used data from more than 15,000 people with a history of cancer who were participating in the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program.
- Similarly, for esophageal cancer, the researchers zeroed in on a type called squamous cell carcinoma, which is the only type known to be triggered by alcohol consumption.
- While such public policies are effective and necessary, says Dr. Amy Justice, professor of medicine and public health at Yale University, we need to go further.
- The processes that the body uses to break down alcohol produce a compound called acetaldehyde, a toxin that several organizations have classified as a probable cause of cancer in people.
Quitting Smoking Improves Lung Cancer Survival
“It wasn’t so much how you protect your body from cancer, liver disease, or losing a few months or even years of life expectancy,” he said. More research is needed to understand what is speedballing some of the disparities seen in this study, such as with age, Dr. LoConte said. The breakdown of alcohol can also produce reactive oxygen species, also known as free radicals. These molecules can damage DNA, and the gene changes that result can lead to a cell turning cancerous. Studies have shown that “high-risk behaviors are higher in [AYA] survivors,” Dr. DuVall said. But the All of Us study, Dr. Cao and her colleagues explained, offered a unique opportunity to take a robust look at people in these groups in the United States.
What that means is that nations in those areas of Africa should be thinking now about strategies to control drinking. “Currently, only 16 of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have national alcohol strategies,” says Rumgay. Some of the highest proportions of alcohol-related cancers were found in Moldova and Romania, she said. But recent changes in taxing policy, which has increased the cost of alcohol in those countries, have caused a drop in alcohol sales.
Why Aren’t People Aware of the Cancer Risk From Drinking?
The breakdown of ethanol in the body can also create high levels of acetaldehyde, which can damage DNA and cause liver, head and neck, and esophageal cancers. However, based on more recent, comprehensive studies, public health experts now generally agree that alcohol—including wine—does not have a so-called “cardioprotective” effect. Nevertheless, the research team also asked participants about the purported heart health benefits of alcohol, to see if it was related to their awareness about alcohol and cancer salvia trip explained risk.
The fact that drinking alcohol can cause cancer has received increasing attention in the past few years. When they further analyzed their data incorporating former drinkers and including the two cancers possibly linked to alcohol, the numbers went up significantly. “When we did the analysis and included former drinking, pancreatic and stomach cancers, the numbers increased to 925,000 alcohol-related cancers,” she said.
What is the evidence that alcohol drinking can cause cancer?
The researchers could not verify, however, if the drinking occurred during treatment. Worldwide, alcohol may cause around 3 million deaths each year, including over 400,000 from cancer. With alcohol consumption rising, particularly in rapidly developing countries such as China, there is an urgent need to understand how alcohol affects disease risks in different populations. They found that the more alcohol people drink, the higher their risk of an alcohol-related cancer. Drinking at least two and as many as more than six drinks a day, defined as risky to heavy drinking, posed the greatest risk of a future cancer. Even moderate drinking, two or fewer drinks a day, accounted for an estimated 14%, or 103,000 cases, of alcohol-related cancers, according to the study.
Launched in 2018, All of Us captures information on participants’ lifestyle and other behaviors and personal background via comprehensive surveys. Participants can also allow access to their electronic health records (with all identifying information removed), providing important insights on treatments received and other relevant health information. The first mutation is a loss-of-function mutation in the gene for the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2). The risks of alcohol consumption are so substantial that the World Health Organization recently declared any amount of alcohol to be dangerous.
“If you’re pouring it yourself, a lot of people may not be [doing things like] using a shot glass to make a mixed drink at home. That’s a major concern with excessive alcohol consumption, that people aren’t honest with themselves,” said Dr. Abnet. A serving of alcohol is measured by volume, but the amount of alcohol in a serving can vary greatly depending on the variety or brand of beer or wine or the type of mixed drink or cocktail—as well as how much is poured. The estimates of cancer cases attributed to alcohol may have been higher if past consumption had been accounted for, Dr. Abnet said.
Get our weekly newsletter that’ll tell you exactly what you need to know in the cancer world. Because of this, the American Cancer Society Guideline for Diet and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention recommendation is that people should avoid alcohol.
The researchers cited the change in public perceptions and tighter regulations for tobacco, which show the importance of public health campaigns and physicians explaining risks to their patients. Dr. Klein noted, “[In] less than half a century, we’ve seen major changes in the way people think about tobacco.” There have been decades of public education campaigns about the health risks of tobacco, warning labels on tobacco products, and smokefree laws. Noelle LoConte, M.D., an oncologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies alcohol and cancer risk, said that these findings confirm what doctors have long observed.
The European Code of Cancer and the American Society of Clinical Oncology have also recommend minimizing alcohol consumption for cancer prevention38,39. That recommendation “was intended to prevent people from becoming alcoholics,” psychologist Tim Stockwell, PhD, of the University of Victoria noted in a recent article in Scientific American. While such public policies are effective and necessary, says Dr. Amy Justice, professor of medicine and public health at Yale University, we need to go further. Justice wrote a commentary in Lancet Oncology accompanying the alcohol-related cancer study. She agrees with the authors that the results are, if anything, an understatement of the impact of alcohol on cancer cases. And she has suggestions to reduce the burden of alcohol-related cancers that go beyond governmental action.
Among people of Japanese descent, those who have this form of ADH have a higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those with the more common form of ADH (30). These amounts are used by public health experts in developing health guidelines about alcohol consumption and to provide a way for people to compare the amounts of alcohol they consume. However, they may not reflect the typical serving sizes people may encounter in daily life.