A study released today by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is certain to give women pause when they find out that drinking alcohol of any type significantly raises their lifetime risks of being diagnosed with certain cancers.
The research, performed in the United Kingdom and involving over 1.2 million women is likely going to be the definitive answer to the questions regarding the harms of alcohol when it comes to the risk of getting cancer.
This is no small question, since this issue has dogged cancer researchers for many years.
The American Cancer Society, for example, currently advises women that they should limit their alcohol intake to at most one drink daily. Other studies have suggested that alcohol has significant positive health benefits, especially when it comes to reducing the risk of heart disease. Resveratrol—a chemical found in red wine—is all the rage these days as researchers try to demonstrate that it is the “life-extending” component in red wine.
But this study puts all of that to rest with its findings that any alcohol consumption by women is likely going to increase their risk of certain cancers.
The authors followed these women for an average of 7.2 years. Overall, as they reported in the study, the average age of the participants was 55years old at the start of the study, which recruited the women from 1996 through 2001. Most of the women had a low to moderate alcohol consumption which meant that 24% were nondrinkers, 29% had 2 or fewer alcoholic drinks per week, 23% had 3-6 drinks per week and the remainder more than 6 drinks weekly. The overwhelming majority (98%) consumed less than 21 drinks weekly, or an average of 3 or fewer daily.
If a woman drank alcoholic beverages, the study found that she had an increased risk of several cancers, including cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx, the larynx, the esophagus, the rectum and the breast. When further studied, the increased risk of cancers of the esophagus (or swallowing tube) was limited to cancers related to smoking (squamous cell cancers), not to those thought to be related to reflux and obesity (adenocarcinomas).
The increased risks for cancers of the head and neck and esophagus were increased only in those women who were current smokers in addition to alcohol consumers. Women who only drank alcohol did not have the increased risk of head and neck and esophageal cancers.
(I should also note that there were several cancers were risk was actually decreased with increasing alcohol consumption. These cancers included thyroid, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and kidney cancer.)
For those cancers where the risk was increased, the amount of that increase was substantial.
The researchers found that the risk increased for every drink a woman took. So, the more alcohol a woman consumed, the greater her risk of getting the cancers associated with alcohol consumption.
When the researchers calculated the impact of alcohol on the total number of cancers diagnosed each year in women in the United Kingdom, they found that alcohol consumption accounted for 11% of all breast cancers in that country, 22% of liver cancers, 9% of rectal cancers and 25% of all head and neck and squamous cell cancers of the esophagus.
Granted, some of those cancers such as liver cancer aren’t particularly common, so even a 22% increase isn’t that noticeable (there were 250 extra liver cancers due to alcohol in the UK every year, according to the authors).
But 11% of all breast cancers—or 5000 women every year in the United Kingdom—developed as a result of alcohol consumption.
In an editorial which accompanied this study, the authors point out that there is now a conflict between the reported health benefits of alcohol, and the increased cancer risk for women as reported in this study.
They emphasized the finding of the study that about 13% of all cancers of the breast, head and neck, esophagus liver and rectum in women could be attributed to alcohol:
“From a standpoint of cancer risk, the message of this report could not be clearer. There is no level of alcohol consumption that can be considered safe… (Emphasis mine)
“It might be reasonable to suspect that many women in the lay public who are asking physicians about any possible safe effects of alcohol are middle aged; for this large group, the only reasonable recommendation we can make is that there is no clear evidence that alcohol has medical benefits.”
So, women take note:
The evidence from this study is detailed and compelling. According to experts, there is little doubt that this research shows conclusively that alcohol in any amount is clearly a danger to your health when it comes to increasing your risk of cancer. There is simply no way to avoid that conclusion. And, it doesn’t make any difference what type of alcohol you drink, whether it is beer or hard liquor, red or white wine. They are all the same when it comes to increasing the risk of these cancers.
Anyone for a club soda with lime?
