Cancer Biologist Explains How Less Than One Drink Increases Your Risk
Alcohol, whether consumed regularly or only on special occasions, takes a toll on your body. From your brain and heart, to your lungs and muscles, to your gastrointestinal and immune systems, alcohol has broad harmful effects on your health – including causing cancer.
Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S., responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually. In comparison, alcohol-related vehicle crashes cause around 13,500 deaths each year in the U.S.
As early as the 1980s, researchers suspected that alcohol can cause cancer. Epidemiological studies have shown that alcohol is causally linked to cancer of the oral cavity, throat, voice box, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum, and breast. Another study reported an association between chronic and binge drinking and pancreatic cancer.
In 2000, the U.S. National Toxicology Program concluded that consuming alcoholic beverages is a known human carcinogen. In 2012, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, classified alcohol a Group 1 carcinogen, the highest classification indicating there is enough evidence to conclude a substance causes cancer in people. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health concur that there is conclusive evidence that alcohol causes several types of cancer.
