The U.S. doctor general said on Friday that alcohol consumption is a leading cause of cancer and should have a warning on the label.
Beer is a factor in almost 100, 000 newly diagnosed cancers each year and approximately 20, 000 deaths from the illness, U. S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in , an advisory , intended to target the media’s focus on the health hazard. By comparison, traffic accidents tied to drinking kill , about 13, 500 Americans , each year.
Alcohol consumption is the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after obesity and tobacco, according to the 22-page advisory. Although there is growing scientific support for this connection over the past 40 years, only half of Americans now recognize it as a cancer risk.
Alcoholic beverage bottles and cans already contain warnings for drinking while pregnant. Additionally, they advise drinking before operating machinery or driving. In California, the voter-approved Proposition 65 also requires businesses that serve or sell alcoholic beverages to provide a warning about health risks, including cancer.
The outcome is uncertain, and any decision to update or expand the label would need congressional approval. President Joe Biden, who has only two weeks to run, appointed Murthy. President-elect Donald Trump has picked Janette Newheiwat, an executive at a New York-based chain of urgent care clinics, as his nominee for surgeon general.
The alcohol industry’s executives said on Friday that the scientific evidence linking alcohol to cancer is mixed.
Amanda Berger, senior vice president at the Distilled Spirits Council, pointed out that a , recent report , by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that alcohol was associated with a higher risk of breast cancer, but did not find such associations with other types of cancer.
In addition, that study came to the conclusion that moderate alcohol consumption is more likely to lead to lower rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease than never drinking alcohol.
According to Berger,” the current health warning on alcohol products has long alerted consumers to the potential risks of drinking it.” It is the federal government’s responsibility to determine any proposed changes to the warning statements based on the entire body of scientific research.” Many lifestyle choices carry potential risks.
The surgeon general’s advisory said that cancers of the colorectum, esophagus, liver, mouth, throat and larynx are all tied to drinking, as is breast cancer in women. With less than one drink a day, the risk of developing breast, mouth, or throat cancers may rise, according to the report.
Yet more than half of Americans are unaware of how their drinking habits affect their risk of developing cancer. According to a survey conducted by the American Institute for Cancer Research, 89 % of Americans were aware that smoking was a risk factor, and 53 % were aware of obesity, but only 45 % were aware that alcohol was also a risk factor.
Nearly half of alcohol-related cancers in the U. S. are breast cancers in women, according to , a study  , published by the American Cancer Society. About 1 in every 6 female breast cancers is due to alcohol, and the disease accounts for about 60 % of all alcohol-related cancer deaths in women.
In consequence, drinking alcohol raises the risk of cancer in women over men. In 2019, about 54, 330 women were diagnosed with a cancer that resulted from drinking, as were roughly 42, 400 men. Breast cancer accounts for about 60 % of all women’s alcohol-related cancer deaths, while colorectal cancer and liver cancer account for about 54 % of men’s alcohol-related cancer deaths.
The absolute risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer is 16.5 % for women who only have one drink per week. According to the advisory, drinking one drink per day raises that risk by 19 %, while drinking two drinks per day increases that risk by 21.8 %.
For men, drinking once a week is tied to a 10 % absolute risk of an alcohol-related cancer. That risk rises to 11.4 % by having one drink per day, and to 13.1 % by having two drinks per day, the advisory says.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer says alcohol is a , Group 1 carcinogen, putting it in the company of tobacco, asbestos and ultraviolet radiation. Alcohol is a cause of cancer in humans, according to the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s declaration in 2000, and organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the American Association for Cancer Research all concur that at least seven different types of cancer are linked to drinking.
There is also evidence to suggest that drinking contributes to skin, prostate, pancreatic and stomach cancers, though more research is needed, the surgeon general’s advisory says.
Nearly 50 years ago, scientists first identified an association between alcohol consumption and certain cancers, and the evidence that drinking is a risk factor for at least seven different types of cancer has grown since.
For instance,  , an observational study  , of 28 million people in 195 countries and territories found that the more alcohol a person consumed, the higher their risk of cancer.  , A study  , involving more than 1 million women found that women who had up to 1 drink per day were 10 % more likely to get breast cancer compared to women who abstained. Likewise,  , a study  , with 36, 000 people found that those who consumed about a drink per day were 40 % more likely to develop mouth cancer than people who didn’t drink at all.
How alcohol causes cancer has been demonstrated in laboratory experiments.
When alcohol is metabolized in the body, it breaks down into a chemical called , acetaldehyde , that can attach itself to DNA. The resultant damage can cause uncontrolled cell growth, which eventually leads to cancer.
Drinking also creates unstable molecules called , reactive oxygen species , that can interfere with DNA, proteins and essential fats. They also , increase inflammation, which makes the body more hospitable to cancer.
Additionally, there is proof that alcohol causes breast cancer by altering estrogen and other hormone levels, and that other carcinogens, like those found in tobacco smoke, are more readily absorbed in the body when they are dissolved in alcohol.
The businesses that sell alcoholic beverages claim to have for a long time urged consumers to drink the beverages responsibly.
The U.S. beer industry has long been a proponent of responsible consumption, according to a Beer Institute spokesman on Friday. We advise adults over the legal drinking age to choose the choices that best fit their personal circumstances and to moderately consume alcohol if they do so.
Dr. Laura Catena, who is both a winemaker and a physician, said that she would “welcome any kind of alert or communication from the surgeon general about the cancer risks of heavy alcohol drinking”, but that it shouldn’t go beyond the established science.
Alcohol consumption accounts for 5.4 % of all cancer cases in the United States, according to the American Association for Cancer Research, making it a higher risk than exposure to UV radiation, poor nutrition, and infections from pathogens like hepatitis and the human papillomavirus. ( For the sake of comparison, 19.3 % of U. S. cancers are attributable to smoking, according to AACR. )
Studies show that people who cut down on alcohol or completely eliminate it can lower their risk of these cancers by 8 % and lower their overall risk of cancer by 4 %.
There is no medical justification for nondrinkers to start drinking alcohol, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services ‘ Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Drinkers who limit their intake to no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two per day for men can reduce their risk.
A 5-ounce glass of wine, a 12-ounce bottle of beer, or a 1-ounce tumbler of distilled spirits count as one drink.
The surgeon general’s advisory says about 83 % of alcohol-related cancer deaths occur in people who exceed those limits. That implies that 17 % of deaths occurred in people who had moderate drinking.
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