This effect was noted for several digestive tract cancers, specifically cancers of the esophagus and the nonglandular forestomach5 (Doll et al. 1999). Two readers, who received no information on the names and affiliations of the authors of each study or the alcohol-related results, independently determined the eligibility of each article for inclusion in the meta-analysis. When the results of a study were published in more than one article, only the most recent and complete article was included in the analysis.
Cancer Research CatalystThe Official Blog of the American Association for Cancer Research
- Both average volume of alcohol consumption and the level of drinking before the event have been shown to affect suicide risk (Borges and Loera 2010).
- Binge drinking—consuming five or more drinks within a few hours for men or four for women—is also likely more dangerous than any other type of drinking, Dr. Abnet explained.
- Breast cancer in women came in third place for number of cases, with almost 100,000 cases (about 4% worldwide) attributable to alcohol use.
- 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.
- Alcohol is causally linked to many cancer types, but trends in alcohol consumption patterns change over time and between geographic regions.
- The significantly greater risks seen in men carrying the low-alcohol tolerability ALDH2 gene variant who still drank regularly suggests that greater accumulation of acetaldehyde may directly increase cancer risk.
Public awareness campaigns and regulatory actions are needed to help people take action to reduce their cancer risk, the authors wrote. Of all cancers, 40% have modifiable risk factors, such as reducing alcohol consumption, quitting smoking, or managing body weight, the authors noted. 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.
Conditions for Which Alcohol Is a Component Cause
Moreover, the RR estimates based on the pooled data in this meta-analysis ranged from 1.1 to 1.3 for the highest level of alcohol intake. 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. Therefore, one cannot draw any conclusions regarding a potential causal role of alcohol in the development of these cancers. To evaluate the overall effects of alcohol on the cancer risk of a population, one must accurately quantify its effects on various types of tumors. To this end, researchers have performed comprehensive meta-analyses of published studies investigating the relationship between alcohol intake and the risk for numerous types of cancer.
Cardiovascular Diseases
The WHO researchers also created an interactive website where people can explore the results by country, cancer site, and other variables. Ischemic diseases are all conditions that are related to the formation of blood clots, which prevent adequate blood flow to certain tissues. Statistically significant means that the observed result would occur by chance under hypothesized conditions less than a specified proportion of the time (usually 5 percent). The number of individual studies does not add up to the total shown because several studies examined more than one type of cancer. Professor Nancy Ip discusses her groundbreaking neuroscience research, focusing on neurotrophic factors and innovative Alzheimer’s disease treatment approaches.
What types of cancer can be caused by drinking alcohol?
The RR for the disease in people without the variable (e.g., abstainers) is defined as 1.0. A RR among the people with the variable (e.g., drinkers) of greater than 1.0 indicates that the variable increases the risk for the disease. The curves shown here pink cocaine tusi were obtained by fitting certain statistical models to the data from several studies (i.e., a meta-analysis).
On the other hand, economic growth in places like China, India and Vietnam might lead to increased alcohol use and related cancers down the road. The lowest rates of alcohol-related cancers in the world were found in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where religious-based policies ensure low rates of drinking. What’s more, the combination of drinking and smoking might indirectly increase the risk of cancer, with alcohol acting as a kind of solvent for the carcinogenic chemicals in tobacco. The study doesn’t account for some possibilities of under-reported alcohol consumption, for example, and for changes in alcohol consumption before and after 2010. The authors pulled details on alcohol use from recorded, unrecorded and tourist per capita alcohol consumption data and participants’ self-reports. While alcohol consumption can be recorded through production, export, import, sales and taxation data, unrecorded alcohol consumption describes alcohol produced and consumed outside of governmental control, according to the World Health Organization.
The doctors and nurses administering the treatment will be able to give specific advice about whether it is safe to consume alcohol while undergoing specific cancer treatments. Alcohol also reduces the body’s ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate. There are a few biological pathways that lead from alcohol consumption to a cancer diagnosis, according to the study. Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells’ ability to repair the damage. Other risk factors for developing hepatocellular carcinoma include obesity, diabetes, anabolic steroids, iron storage disease and exposure to aflatoxin, a toxin produced by mold that can grow on corn, peanuts and other grains.