This finding suggests that continued alcohol consumption, even in low doses, after the onset of liver or pancreas disease, increases the risk of severe consequences. More than 30 conditions listed in the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD–10) (WHO 2007) include the term “alcohol” in their name or definition, indicating that alcohol consumption is a necessary cause underlying these conditions (see table 1). The most important disease conditions in this group are alcohol use disorders (AUDs), which include alcohol dependence and harmful use or alcohol abuse.3 AUDs are less fatal than other chronic disease conditions but are linked to considerable disability (Samokhvalov et al. 2010d).

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Next, they assessed whether gender modified the effect of alcohol on the risk for each neoplasm. They also looked at the effect of adjusting the reported estimates for smoking when examining tobacco-related types of cancer. Finally, the researchers evaluated the variability (i.e., heterogeneity) among the studies’ results according to methods proposed by Greenland and Longnecker (1992). Alcohol consumption also has been linked to cancers of the large bowel (i.e., colon and rectum) in both men and women and to breast cancer in women, although these associations have not yet been proven unequivocally.

These molecules can damage DNA, and the gene changes that result can lead to a cell turning cancerous. 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). Statistical analyses generally do not lead to a calculated, accurate result but instead provide an estimate of the result.

1. “We’ve known about this connection for more than 30 years; this is not our first conversation on the topic,” she said.
2. People who drink less frequently are more likely to be injured or to injure others at a given BAC compared with regular drinkers, presumably because of less tolerance (Gmel et al. 2010).
3. Evidence from Western countries already strongly indicates that alcohol is a direct cause of cancer in the head, neck, oesophagus, liver, colon and breast.
4. For laryngeal cancer, tobacco use also substantially influences the risk, though a strong association with alcohol consumption, indicated by a RR of 3.24, remained even when considering only studies presenting adjusted estimates.
5. On the other hand, alcohol consumption mainly has detrimental effects on the risk for hemorrhagic stroke, which are mediated at least in part by alcohol’s impact on hypertension.

Discussion of the Study Findings

The COVID-19 pandemic also appears to have caused a spike in drinking among women in the United States and elsewhere, explained Dr. strongest vodka in the world LoConte. “Getting access to alcohol has gotten a lot easier, with things like delivery and drive-through pickup, and women in particular are bearing a huge burden of caregiving, which has led to more drinking,” she said. Alcohol consumption in Central and Eastern Europe has in the past been higher than that in other world regions but has decreased in recent years, whereas increases in alcohol consumption are predicted in some countries in Eastern Asia. There have been decades of public education campaigns about the health risks of tobacco, warning labels on tobacco products, and smokefree laws. While cancer remains primarily a disease that affects older people (57% of diagnoses are among people age 65 and older), the report authors highlighted concerning trends in cancer among middle age adults.

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WHO had previously released alcohol policy recommendations as part of its “best buys” campaign to help countries focus on the most effective initiatives to prevent noninfectious diseases. For alcohol-related diseases, these included higher sales taxes on alcohol, limits on where and when alcohol can be purchased, and restrictions on marketing to the public. More information about alcohol and cancer, and about actions that individuals can take to reduce their risk of cancer, can be found in the European Code Against Cancer.

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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).

Because these alleles are allocated at birth and are independent of other lifestyle factors (such as smoking), they can be used as a proxy for alcohol intake, to assess how alcohol consumption affects disease risks. To address these unknowns, researchers from Oxford Population Health, Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, used a genetic approach by investigating gene variants linked to lower alcohol consumption in Asian populations. Remember hearing that moderate drinking was linked with lower risk of heart disease and stroke?