Women, alcohol and cancer
A study of nearly 1.3 million British women provides more evidence on moderate alcohol consumption and increased risk in a variety of cancers.
The British researchers surveyed middle-aged women with breast cancer in the clinics, about their health habits and followed up for seven years.
A quarter of women reported no alcohol use and most of the remainder reported that the average consumption was one drink per day.
The researchers compared to light drinkers of two or fewer drinks a week, with people who drank more.
Each extra drink per day increased the risk of breast cancer, rectum and liver, from the University of Oxford, researchers report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The type of alcoholic beverages such as, wine, beer or spirits did not matter, defined earlier research that alcohol consumption was associated with esophageal and oral cancer, only when the drinkers were smokers.
Furthermore, moderate drinkers actually had a lower risk of thyroid cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma and renal cell cancer.
For a woman the risk is manifested by a small total alcohol in developed countries, about 118 of every 1,000 women develop any of these types of cancer and every extra daily drink added 11 breast cancers, plus four other types.
But in the whole population, 13 percent of cancer cases in Britain may be attributable to alcohol, this being the conclusion of the study.
[...] Excessive alcohol consumption is defined as more than two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women. Drinking party is considered more than five drinks in a single occasion for men and more than four drinks for women. Approximately five percent of adults drink too much and 15 percent of the drinking party. It is not known exactly how many underage drinkers are also alcohol abuse. [...]