Heavy drinking increases cancer risk
Heavy drinkers of beer and spirits face a much higher risk of developing cancer than the population at large, says a group of Canadian epidemiologists and cancer researchers. Their findings, published in the current issue of the journal Cancer Detection and Prevention, show that people in the highest consumption category increased their risk of developing oesophageal cancer sevenfold, colon cancer by 80 per cent and lung cancer by fifty per cent. In all, the researchers found statistically significant relationships between heavy consumption of beer and spririts and six different cancers.
Moderate drinking (less than daily) and wine consumption did not show the same effects, however. The research conducted by Dr Andrea Benedetti of McGill University compared people who drank heavily with against groups who abstained or drank only very occasionally.
They also looked for trends across categories: non-drinkers, weekly drinkers and daily drinkers. The results were astounding. “We saw increased risk for esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer,”
Benedetti said. “The strongest risk was for esophageal and liver cancer.” The researchers used data originally collected for a large occupational cancer study conducted in Montreal in the 1980s. The information was a treasure-trove, said Benedetti. The data also included information about non-occupational factors such as drinking alcohol, smoking . cigarettes, and socio-economic status. “For the most part we showed that light drinkers were less affected or not affected at all,” said Benedetti. “This adds to the growing body of evidence that heavy drinking is extremely unhealthy in so many ways.”
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