Alcohol is the third biggest controllable risk factor for the disease, after tobacco smoking and excess weight. The PAFs were estimated by combining data on alcohol consumption, the increased risk of developing cancer due to alcohol consumption, and estimates of cancer incidence. Alcohol use is not independent of other risk factors, therefore research projects addressing alcohol as a target for cancer prevention and control should consider a multi-behavioral framework along with multilevel influences on alcohol use.
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All intimidatory activities we identified had a chilling effect on important public health work. Researchers and advocates took time to respond to the complaints or requests for information, or had to discontinue or alter their work at least temporarily, while legal action ran its course. “Hepatocellular cancer is the sixth most common cancer worldwide, and incidence is increasing. Alcohol use is well known to increase risk of hepatocellular cancer among individuals with obesity, who have hepatitis B or C virus infection, or who smoke,” Justice wrote. The authors said they “found that alcohol use causes a substantial burden of cancer,” but other experts say multiple limitations could weaken the strength of that proposed relationship.
Drinking alcohol may be related to cancer, study finds, but there are many unknowns
Alcohol is causally linked to many cancer types, but trends in alcohol consumption patterns change over time and between geographic regions. Therefore, new studies are needed to quantify the contribution of alcohol to the current global burden of cancer. Cancer cases and alcohol consumption were highest in central and eastern Europe and eastern Asia, where hepatitis B is a common cause of hepatocellular carcinoma, according to the American Cancer Society. Rates of hepatitis B and this liver cancer have been high in the Asia-Pacific region, especially among men – as the study found. While Bevers says studies show that alcohol is a risk factor for certain cancers, the link between alcohol and cancer recurrence is not known, especially for those who have completed cancer treatment. “If you drink red wine in the hopes that you are protecting your heart health, I would look for other ways to do that,” she says.
Bevers acknowledges that most Americans are not going to avoid drinking alcohol completely. Because of this, she believes it is important to share examples of what drinking less, or moderately, might look like. More cancers could be prevented, she says, if people fully understood the risks of alcohol.
“When it comes to managing your cancer risk, there is no alcoholic drink that is better than the other. All of them — including beer, wine and liquor — have ethanol, which is linked to increased cancer risk,” Bevers says. 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. For a more detailed description of these statistical analyses, see the textbox, p. 265, and the articles by Corrao and colleagues (1999, 2000). Alcohol usage particularly increases the risk for colorectal, liver, stomach, breast, head, neck, and throat cancers.
We found reports of surveillance, where researchers and advocates and their families were followed, and cyberattacks where computers and mobile phones were hacked. In New Zealand, an industry-paid consultant working for tobacco, alcohol and UPF companies sent Freedom of Information Act requests to researchers and advocates and used the resulting information to denigrate them. The majority were not papers specifically about intimidation, but most were about corporate interference in policy passage or implementation. The remaining third were sources like blogs, newspaper articles, news stories in peer-reviewed journals, a case study, a press release, a recorded seminar and a book.
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Approximately 4% of cancers diagnosed worldwide in 2020 can be attributed to alcohol consumption, according to a new WHO report. For example, one way the body metabolizes alcohol is through the activity of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, or ADH, which converts ethanol into the carcinogenic metabolite acetaldehyde, mainly in the liver. Recent evidence suggests that acetaldehyde production also occurs in the oral cavity and may be influenced by factors such as the oral microbiome (28, 29).
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- Over the past few decades, however, several animal studies have indicated that alcohol can have a cocarcinogenic, or cancer-promoting, effect.
- Cancers of the esophagus and liver accounted for more than 340,000 alcohol-attributable cancers diagnosed in 2020.
- Nearly 47% of the alcohol-attributable cancers were linked to heavy drinking, which the authors defined as 60 or more grams of ethanol alcohol (the alcohol found in alcoholic beverages), or more than six drinks, per day.
- For a more detailed description of these statistical analyses, see the textbox, p. 265, and the articles by Corrao and colleagues (1999, 2000).
While she says some studies suggest that there are compounds in red wine that offer cardiovascular benefits, there are plenty of other ways to keep your heart healthy. While she says the best way to reduce cancer risk is not drinking alcohol, drinking less can have a positive impact. Breast cancer in women came in third place for number of cases, with almost 100,000 cases (about 4% worldwide) attributable to Meetings Listing Online Meetings alcohol use.