Cancer alert: Study confirms alcohol causes 7 types of cancer
New study has shown that alcohol may raise the risk of seven different cancers. Experts at University of Otago in New Zealand have found links to cancer of the breast, bowel, liver, colon, oesophagus, larynx, throat and mouth. This new study has provided strong evidence that boozing can cause these seven types of cancer.
While heavy drinking has always been linked to cancers, the researchers said that even low amounts of alcohol may also cause the deadly disease. As per University of Otago’s Jennie Connor, there is no safe boozing level when it comes to cancer.
Connor even dismissed supposed health benefits of drinking, such as red wine being good for the heart. She said that the supposed health benefits were “seen increasingly as irrelevant in comparison to the increase in risk of a range of cancers.”
“There is strong evidence that alcohol causes cancer at seven sites, and probably others. Confirmation of specific biological mechanisms by which alcohol increases the incidence of each type of cancer is not required to infer that alcohol is a cause,” Connor writes in journal Addiction.
As per Mirror.co.uk, the Otago findings stated that for every 1,000 women who don’t drink, 109 will develop breast cancer. But this number goes up to 126 women when 14 units are consumed in a week and 153 women, when 14-35 units are consumed.
The study revealed that compared to non-drinkers, women who regularly drink two units a day have a 16 percent increased risk of developing breast cancer and dying from it. Those who consume five units a day, have a 40 percent increased risk.
“Many people believe that alcohol consumption is only linked to liver cancer. But this review confirms it is strongly linked to an increased risk of a number of different cancers, including two of the most common – bowel and breast cancer. Among other evidence, we see the risk increasing as the amount of alcohol consumed increases, and we agree that there is solid evidence to conclude that alcohol consumption directly causes cancer,” said science programme manager for the World Cancer Research Fund, Susannah Brown, of the new research, writes The Sun.
