When it comes to alcohol’s links to cancer, top US experts say the jury is no longer out.
America’s leading voice on the disease, the National Cancer Institute, has linked alcohol to seven different types of the disease, including the most deadly kinds.
Over recent decades, the idea that alcohol can be beneficial to health has increasingly been challenged as scientists learn more about the effects the drug has on the body.
In a major report last week, the NCI found drinking just one drink – defined as one bottle of beer, regular glass of wine or shot of liquor – per day raised the risk of developing oral cancers, challenging the notion that a drink with dinner is a sweet spot.
Meanwhile in women who drink eight or more glasses of wine each week, the data suggests rates of throat, mouth and esophageal cancer are between two and five times higher than those who abstain.
The National Cancer Institute Alcohol and Cancer Risk Fact sheet gathered decades of research that investigated the link between cancer and alcohol. They determined clear evidence of a link to seven types of cancer. One drink is the equivalent of 12 ounces of beer, a shot of liquor or five ounces of wine
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For men, the same risk applies, but with a higher threshold – they must have 15 or more drinks.
Alcohol affects each part of the body differently, and someone’s likelihood of developing alcohol related cancer can also depend on the genes they inherited.
In the mouth and throat, alcohol can be an irritant, damaging and inflaming the delicate cells that line the area, according to the American Cancer Society.
This can also make the cells more susceptible to damage from other carcinogens, like cigarette smoke.
Dr Therese Bevers, the medical director of MD Anderson’s Cancer Prevention Center, said: ‘The important thing to remember is that every time you drink, you increase your cancer risk. As with cigarettes and processed meat, there is no safe amount of alcohol’.
Yet the US public is widely unaware of this link – a 2017 study from the American Institute for Cancer research found only 39 percent of Americans new that alcohol was a risk factor for cancer.
At the same time, 218.7million US adults report having drank alcohol at some point in their life. That’s roughly 84 percent of US citizens over eighteen, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
As a result, some 75,000 Americans are diagnosed with cancers linked to alcohol, causing an estimated 19,000 deaths. These include liver, head, neck, esophageal, colorectal and breast cancers .
Because drinking is so common, researchers at the National Cancer Institute have begun to keep track of emerging trends linking alcohol to certain cancers.
To start, NCI has found that if you’re a woman who has seven drinks per week or a man who has 14 drinks per week, otherwise known as a moderate drinker, your risk of developing mouth and throat cancers is 1.8 times higher than those who don’t drink.
The report defines one drink as either 12 ounces of beer, a shot of liquor or five ounces of wine.
For the same amount of drinking, your risk of developing cancer in the pharynx, otherwise known at the voice box, is 1.4 times higher than people who don’t drink.
Men who drink 15 or more drinks per week and women who drink eight or more drinks per week, otherwise known as heavy drinkers, have a 2.6 higher risk of developing voice box cancers and a five times greater risk for developing mouth and throat cancers.
Drinking a moderate amount of alcohol raises your risk for developing cancers of the esophagus – the tube that connects the throat to the stomach – by 1.3 times higher than not drinking at all.
Heavy drinking increases your risk of the cancer 5 times higher than if you weren’t to drink at all.
Researchers haven’t found an increased risk of liver cancer in moderate drinkers – but in heavy drinkers, the risk for liver cancer is two times higher than in teetotalers.
Doctors theorize that cancer in this part of the body is related to how the body processes alcohol. As it gets broken down in the body, it forms a chemical called acetaldehyde, which has the ability to damage the body’s DNA and proteins, according to the National Cancer Institute.
This chemical can build up in the liver and other organs, mutating the cell’s there, forming cancer.
For women, moderate drinking is defined as having one drink or less per day – totaling as much as seven per week. Heavy drinking is defined as having eight or more per week.
A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer, a shot of liquor or five ounces of wine. Sometimes, the
Next, moderate drinkers have a 1.2 times higher risk for colorectal cancers than those who don’t drink. Heavy drinkers have a 1.5 times higher risk of cancers for the colon and the rectum than those who don’t drink.
Colorectal cancers could be linked to alcohol because drinking may stop the body from being able to process vitamins and other nutrients that have been linked to cancer. For example, some studies have shown that heavy drinking interrupts the processing of folate, a vitamin which the body uses to keep cells healthy.
Outside the digestive tract, scientists have found that women who drink moderately have a 1.23 times higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who don’t drink at all. Women who drink more than eight drinks per week has a 1.6 times higher risk of the cancer.
Doctors say that could be because alcohol can increase the amount of estrogen circulating in the body. Estrogen is a hormone that the body produces naturally, but high amounts have been linked to increased risk of breast cancer.
People should be aware of these risks, but for those who limit their drinking, there’s no need to be panicked about your nightcap, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician Cambridge University, said.
‘Frankly I get irritated when the harms of low levels are exaggerated, particularly with claims such as “no level of alcohol is safe”‘, Sir Spiegelhalter said.
‘For a start I don’t think the evidence supports that, but also there’s no safe level of driving, there’s no safe level of living, but no one recommends abstention.’
