Obesity and alcohol are a potentially lethal mix.
Newfoundland researchers have found obese people who are heavy drinkers are at much greater risk of developing colorectal cancer than their normal-weight peers.

The study found no connection between alcohol and healthy or slightly overweight people. But obese individuals who reported having five or more drinks a day were nearly four times as likely to develop colorectal cancer than normal-weight people who were not heavy drinkers.

The study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, suggests more research is needed to understand the links between obesity, alcohol and cancer.

“It will be interesting to determine if other studies show that there is modification of the association between alcohol intake and colorectal cancer by obesity,” they wrote. “If such is the case, it could help understand some of the mechanisms for the development of cancer and provide better guidelines for screening for colorectal cancer.”