A. We were some of the first to look at awareness of alcohol as a risk factor for cancer in the United States in 2019 and found that awareness was quite low at the time of that study. Thirty-eight percent of the U.S. population believed there was an association, 36% were uncertain, and 25% believed there was no association. We’ve been able to use data like this from the Health Information National Trends Survey to really start to build our understanding of how the population thinks about alcohol.
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This article summarizes the major findings of one such meta-analysis (Corrao et al. 1999, 2000). However, some individuals with the defective form of ALDH2 can become tolerant to the unpleasant effects of acetaldehyde and consume large amounts of alcohol. Epidemiologic studies have shown that such individuals have a higher risk of alcohol-related esophageal cancer, as well as of head and neck cancers, than individuals with the fully active enzyme who drink comparable amounts of alcohol (31). These increased risks are seen only among people who carry the ALDH2 variant and drink alcohol—they are not observed in people who carry the variant but do not drink alcohol. Although colonoscopy is the gold standard for CRC detection, low compliance limits its utility in screening 16. To improve this, non-invasive strategies such as FOBT, FIT, and risk assessment questionnaires (i.e., Harvard Risk Index 17 and APCS score 13) have been commonly used 18.
New Report Highlights Overlooked Cancer Risk Factor: Alcohol
This process can take up to 10 years, so early diagnosis and treatment for early-stage CRC could significantly improve cancer prognosis. According to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, from 2012 to 2018, the 5-year survival rates of patients with early-stage and late-stage CRC were 90.9 and 15.1%, respectively. In China, the proportion of late-stage CRC is as high as 84.8%, while only 15.2% were detected in the early stage of the disease 5. Therefore, early screening of CRC and pre-cancerous lesions in the Chinese population is urgently needed for better prevention and treatment. Cancers of the esophagus and liver accounted for more than 340,000 alcohol-attributable cancers diagnosed in 2020.
Reducing or eliminating alcohol intake can lower the risk, offering a form of empowerment in the face of an often unpredictable disease. It’s the first time, Rumgay says, that research has quantified the risks of different levels of drinking. “Our study highlights the contribution of even relatively low levels of alcohol to the risk of new cancer cases,” says Rumgay. Taken together, if these gaps are filled, they could potentially change what we say about the effects of alcohol on cancer risk, how we communicate that evidence and affect drinking behaviors,” she said. For example, in the case of liver cancer, heavy alcohol consumption is known to cause cirrhosis, a chronic condition in which healthy cells in the liver are replaced with scar tissue, often causing inflammation and ultimately, leading to liver cancer.
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In addition, effective CRC screening theoretically leads to a stage shift of tumor and improvement of 5-year survival 24, 25. Yangzhou program demonstrated a significant stage shift in detected CRC cases, likely leading to greater prevention, reduced medical costs, and improved social benefits. At least 4% of the world’s newly diagnosed cases of esophageal, mouth, larynx, colon, rectum, liver and breast cancers in 2020, or 741,300 people, can be attributed to drinking alcohol, according to a study in the July 13 edition of Lancet Oncology. Of the 172,600 alcohol-related cancer cases diagnosed in women, the vast majority, or 98,300 cases, were breast cancer.
Relationship between increasing amounts of alcohol and risk (i.e., relative risk or RR) for 14 types of cancer. The RR describes the strength of the relationship between a variable (e.g., alcohol consumption) and a disease (e.g., cancer). 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 were obtained by fitting certain statistical models to the data from several studies (i.e., a meta-analysis).
They found that the more alcohol people drink, the higher their risk of an alcohol-related cancer. Drinking at least two and as many as more than six drinks a day, defined as risky to heavy drinking, posed the greatest risk of a future cancer. 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. But most Americans aren’t aware of this link, thanks to seemingly contradictory research and mixed messaging from public health experts. A study published in 2023 found widespread mistaken beliefs that the risk varies by beverage type, with the lowest cancer risk assigned to wine. Another study published in 2021 showed that nearly 70% of people did not even know that alcohol was a cancer risk factor.
- Approximately 4% of cancers diagnosed worldwide in 2020 can be attributed to alcohol consumption, according to a new WHO report.
- Alcohol is estimated to account for 6% of cancer cases in the U.S. — more than 75,000 per year — and nearly 19,000 cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
- 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.
- This process can take up to 10 years, so early diagnosis and treatment for early-stage CRC could significantly improve cancer prognosis.
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We found that a lower number of people believed that wine increased cancer risk compared to beer or liquor. Only about 20% of respondents believed that wine increased cancer risks, compared to about 25% for beer, and about 31% for liquor. Nearly 750,000 cases of cancer diagnosed worldwide in 2020, or 4%, can be attributed to alcohol consumption, according to a new study from the World Health Organization (WHO). While heavy drinking accounted for the most cases, light and moderate drinking accounted for more than 100,000 of those cases, the study found. Researchers have known about powerless over alcohol the relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and the risk for esophageal and other upper digestive and respiratory tract cancers since the beginning of the last century.
A recent large study of more than 135,000 older drinkers in the UK has shown that the more people drink, the higher the risk of death from any cause. What that means is that nations in those areas of Africa should be thinking now about strategies to control drinking. “Currently, only 16 of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have national alcohol strategies,” says Rumgay.