Alcohol reportedly causes seven types of cancer and even low amounts of alcohol consumption can put users at risk, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Addiction this week.
The new analysis suggests that alcohol plays a role in the development of breast, colon, and live cancer along with other types. Jennie Connor, the author of the study,
told The Guardian there is "enough credible evidence" to say there is a direct link between alcohol and cancer.
"There is strong evidence that alcohol causes cancer at seven sites in the body and probably others," said Connor, of the preventive and social medicine department at Otago University in New Zealand. "Even without complete knowledge of biological mechanisms (of how alcohol causes cancer), the epidemiological evidence can support the judgment that alcohol causes cancer of the oropharynx, larynx, oesophagus, liver, colon, rectum, and breast."
A statement from Otago University said evidence from the study's conclusions was derived from comprehensive reviews over the past 10 years by the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the Global Burden of Disease Alcohol Group, along with a "comprehensive meta-analysis ... building on meta-analyses of the effect of alcohol on single cancers."
Connor wrote in her analysis that the limitations of cohort studies could mean that "the true effects" of alcohol in its connection with cancer may be "somewhat weaker or stronger than estimated currently but are not qualitatively different."
"Current estimates suggest that alcohol-attributable cancers at these sites make up 5.8 percent of all cancer deaths worldwide," according to the conclusion of the Addiction journal study. "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."
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