Drinking more increases cancer risk: study

Bottoms … down?

Increasing alcohol consumption amps up one’s cancer risk, a new study out of South Korea has found.

The large study, published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, found a higher risk of all cancers, not just alcohol-related ones, among people who increased their drinking as compared to those who made no changes.

The study of 4.5 million adults in Korea found that sustained levels of drinking kept cancer risk the same, and the cancer incidence rose when people drank more. Likewise, when nondrinkers took to the sauce and started mild, moderate or heavy drinking, their risk increased commensurately. In particular they had increased instances of stomach, liver, gallbladder and lung cancer, multiple myeloma and leukemia, the study said.

The goal was to study changes in alcohol consumption rather than the effect of alcohol itself on cancer risk, which is already well documented.

“Although an increased risk was observed temporarily after quitting drinking, no increased risk was observed when quitting was sustained,” the researchers said in their abstract. “Findings of this study suggest that drinking cessation and reduction should be reinforced for the prevention of cancer.”

The subjects were under age 40, and it was a large group, but there was no information available about earlier-life alcohol consumption or on accompanying changes in other healthy behaviors, an accompanying editorial from Nacional Cancer Institute experts noted as potential study limitations.

“This is another great example of how changing behavior could significantly decrease cancer deaths,” Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, told CNN. “The most striking findings is the impact on cancer deaths with changes in alcohol consumption. Individuals should be strongly counseled that they can dramatically decrease their cancer risk if alcohol consumption is moderated.”