Alcohol Use and Cancer
Drinking alcohol increases the risk of cancer. It is the third most common potentially avoidable cause of cancer, after cigarette smoking and excess body weight.
What types of cancer are linked to alcohol use?
Alcohol use has been linked with cancers of the:
Alcohol most likely increases the risk of some other cancers as well.
For some cancers, like liver cancer, the more alcohol you drink, the higher your cancer risk. But for other types of cancer, mainly breast cancer, drinking even small amounts of alcohol increases your risk. Drinking alcohol and its link to cancer were higher in men than in women, except for esophageal cancer.
Researchers have found that alcohol use raises the risk of mouth, throat, voice box, and esophagus cancer. Drinking and smoking together raises this risk many times more than drinking or smoking alone.
This might be because alcohol can help harmful chemicals in tobacco get inside the cells that line your mouth, throat, and esophagus. Alcohol might also limit how well these cells can repair any DNA damage that has been caused by the chemicals in tobacco.
Long-term alcohol use has been linked to an increased risk of liver cancer. Regular, heavy alcohol use can damage your liver, leading to inflammation and scarring and raising your risk of liver cancer.
Alcohol use is linked to a higher risk of cancers of the colon and rectum.
Alcohol can raise estrogen levels in the body, which may explain some of the increased risk. Avoiding or cutting back on alcohol may be an important way for many women to lower their risk of breast cancer.
Alcoholic drinks increase gut inflammation and raise your risk of stomach cancer.
Do all types of alcohol increase cancer risk?
Yes, all types of alcohol increase cancer risk. This includes beer, wine, liquor (distilled spirits), and other drinks. When it comes to cancer risk, the amount of alcohol you drink over time seems to be the most important risk factor. The type of alcohol you drink isn’t as important.
Most evidence suggests that the ethanol in alcohol is what increases cancer risk, not other things in the drink. Ethanol is the type of alcohol found in all alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic drinks have different percentages of ethanol.
One standard-sized serving of alcohol = 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor (distilled spirits).
In general, one standard-sized serving of alcohol has roughly the same amount of ethanol (about half an ounce) no matter the type. Of course, larger or “stronger” drinks can have more ethanol than this.
How can drinking alcohol raise your risk of cancer?
There are several ways alcohol can raise cancer risk, which might depend on the type of cancer.
Alcohol can damage your body tissues in multiple ways:
- Alcohol can act as an irritant, especially in the mouth and throat.
- Most alcohol turns into the damaging chemical acetaldehyde, which has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals.
- Drinking alcohol can also lead to oxidative stress in your cells. This causes the cells to make too many harmful oxygen molecules (free radicals).
Alcohol and its byproducts can also damage your liver, leading to inflammation and scarring (cirrhosis).
Cells that are damaged by alcohol may try to repair themselves. This could lead to DNA changes that can be a step toward cancer.
Alcohol may help harmful chemicals enter the cells lining your upper digestive tract more easily. This includes harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke. It might explain why the combination of smoking and drinking is more likely to cause cancers in the mouth or throat than smoking or drinking alone.
Alcohol may also slow your body’s ability to break down and get rid of some harmful chemicals.
Alcohol might affect your body’s ability to absorb some nutrients, such as folate. Folate is a vitamin that your cells need to stay healthy. Low folate levels may play a role in the risk of some cancers, such as breast and colorectal cancer.
Over time, if people do not consume enough folate and drink heavy amounts of alcohol, their absorption of nutrients can be worse.
Estrogen is a hormone important in the growth and development of breast tissue. Alcohol can raise the levels of estrogen in the body, which could affect a woman’s risk of breast cancer.
Too much alcohol can add extra calories to your diet, which can contribute to weight gain in some people. Having excess body weight is known to increase the risks of many types of cancer.
Along with these effects, alcohol may contribute to cancer growth in other, unknown ways.
Other health effects from drinking alcohol
Most people know about the short-term effects of drinking alcohol, such as its effects on mood, focus, judgment, and physical activity. But alcohol can also have longer-term health effects. These can look different from person to person.
For some people, alcohol is addictive. Drinking can become heavier over time, leading to serious health and social problems.
People who drink heavy amounts of alcohol who suddenly stop drinking can have physical withdrawal symptoms over the next few days. This includes tremors, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, and other serious problems.
In some people, these withdrawal symptoms can be life-threatening. This doesn’t mean people who drink should not stop drinking. But it does mean people who drink heavy amounts of alcohol should talk with their health care team about the safest way to stop and get help.
Drinking alcohol during pregnancy, especially heavy drinking, can cause birth defects or other problems with the fetus.
Over time, excessive alcohol use can:
- Cause inflammation (hepatitis) and heavy scarring (cirrhosis) in the liver, which can lead to liver failure
- Damage other organs, such as the pancreas and the brain
- Raise your blood pressure
- Increase your risk of heart disease and stroke
- Weaken your immune system
What does the American Cancer Society recommend?
According to the American Cancer Society Guideline for Diet and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention, it is best not to drink alcohol. People who choose to drink alcohol should limit their intake to no more than 2 drinks per day for men and 1 drink a day for women.
The recommended limit is lower for women because of their smaller body size and because their bodies tend to break down alcohol more slowly.
Alcohol use during and after cancer treatment
There are some cases during cancer treatment in which alcohol clearly should be avoided. For example:
- Alcohol, even in very small amounts, can irritate mouth sores caused by some cancer treatments. It can also make them worse.
- Alcohol can interact with some drugs used during cancer treatment, which might increase the risk of harmful side effects.
It’s important to talk with your cancer care team before you drink alcohol during cancer treatment.
For people who have completed cancer treatment, it isn’t clear if alcohol use after treatment might raise the risk of cancer recurrence or a second cancer, but it is possible. For example, alcohol can raise the levels of estrogen in the body, which might increase the risk of breast cancer recurrence. But research continues to find out for sure.
It’s important to discuss with your cancer care team:
- The type of cancer you had
- Your risk of recurrence
- Your treatment(s)
- Your overall health
- Other possible health effects of drinking
For people who’ve had cancers of the larynx, head and neck, or liver, some evidence suggests you should limit or avoid alcohol use because it may raise the risk of dying.
- Written by
- References
The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team
Our team is made up of doctors and oncology certified nurses with deep knowledge of cancer care as well as editors and translators with extensive experience in medical writing.
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US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the US Surgeon General. Alcohol and Cancer Risk: The US Surgeon General’s Advisory. 2025. Accessed at https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/alcohol-cancer/index.html on July 22, 2025.Rock CL, Thomson C, Gansler T, et al. American Cancer Society guideline for diet and physical activity for cancer prevention. CA Cancer J Clin. 2020;70(4):245-271. Accessed at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3322/caac.21591 on July 23, 2025.
World Cancer Research Fund. Alcohol and Cancer. Accessed at https://www.wcrf.org/preventing-cancer/topics/alcohol-and-cancer/ on July 21, 2025.
Last Revised: September 10, 2025
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