Of all the things we put into our bodies, alcohol may be the most confusing. We know the cancer risk for heavy drinkers. Alcohol abuse can not only lead to liver cancer but has been shown to increase your risk for cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, and many more. Examining over 200 studies of light drinkers, one analysis discovered that drinking just one alcoholic beverage a day slightly increased a person’s chance of developing several cancers including breast cancer.
Yet research on the risk to moderate drinkers seems ever-changing. Some studies suggest small amounts of alcohol might even be healthy. One indicated that teetotalers don’t live as long as those who drink in moderation. Red wine has been touted as a health food. Recent data recommends total alcohol abstinence as the ideal way to reduce cancer risk. So what is the best current evidence? Most importantly, what does it mean to you?
Moderate vs Heavy Drinkers
Heavy drinkers clearly have poor health outcomes. The problem is that the line between moderate and heavy is a fairly fine one. The standard drink is one containing around 14 grams of pure alcohol (0.6 fluid ounces or 1.2 tablespoons). In the United States, a 12-ounce beer or a mixed drink is considered a standard drink. In the United Kingdom, the 440-milliliter can is slightly larger while German beer is usually sold as the equivalent of 16 ounces. A bottle of wine equals five standard drinks. Like similar organizations across the world, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends women not exceed one drink per day. Men can have two.
Unfortunately, few people stick to such strict regimens. Often, drinkers consume moderately during the work week but binge on the weekends. This means four or more drinks in one sitting for women; five or more for men. Usually this binge takes place over two hours or so––since alcohol leaves your system slowly, drinking the same amount over five hours would have less effect. As with smoking, women are not as likely to engage in high-risk behavior as men. However, they are catching up. There is evidence that binge drinking increases a woman’s likelihood for developing breast cancer.
Fast Damage
That first sip of wine or gulp of beer has an immediate effect. It travels into the small blood vessels in your mouth and tongue before entering your stomach. If you have eaten recently, it will stay there longer as some of the alcohol is broken down by an enzyme. It then moves on to the intestines––it arrives there more rapidly if your stomach is empty. Depending on whether your stomach was full or not, between 75% to 85% of the alcohol passes through the small intestine and enters the bloodstream. It will eventually be broken down by the liver. The more you drink, the longer it takes to break down and the more it will affect you.
As your body breaks down ethanol, it produces a potential carcinogen called acetaldehyde. Realizing how many organs alcohol touches is illuminating. It makes it easier to see why so many cancers are connected to heavy drinking. Yet what do studies say about moderate consumption? Examining the habits of numerous people who had reached the age of 90, The 90+ Study was featured in numerous articles and news programs because it suggested that the longest living people drank in moderation. Teetotalers actually died at a younger age. In countries where red wine is commonly consumed with meals, incidents of heart disease are often lower. Because the grapes that are used to make red wine contain the plant secondary compound resveratrol, the beverage has been touted for its health benefits. Although those benefits may have been overstated, a 2018 examination of studies involving nearly 700,000 participants noted that moderate consumption of red wine reduced the risk of developing prostate cancer. White wine drinkers had a slightly higher risk.
Recently one of the largest examinations of people’s health and nutrition habits concluded that even light drinking increases cancer risk. Involving over 41,000 people over age 40, members of France’s NutriNet-Santé study were surveyed about their eating and drinking habits. Besides concluding that those who ate plant-based diets like the one developed by the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) had a lower cancer risk, it also concluded that abstaining from alcohol was protective against prostate and colon cancer.
The challenge is that drinkers . . . drink. If you don’t drink, there’s no need to start. No one who avoids alcohol should force themselves to drink a glass of red wine as a cancer prevention strategy. Alcohol’s merits have been debated for millennia. Solomon suggested in Ecclesiastes to “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart for God has already accepted thy works.” The old joke that “teetotalers don’t live longer–it just feels that way” has some merit. If your drinking is not affecting your health, relationships, or work you are probably okay. Just know the risks. Refusing that third glass of Pinot Noir is probably the right decision––not just for its cancer risk, but for your overall health.
Written by John Bankston
References
- Foods That May Increase Risk of Cancer | UPMC HealthBeat
- Light alcohol drinking and cancer: a meta-analysis
- What Is a Standard Drink?
- 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans
- Alcohol and Cancer Risk Fact Sheet
- Lifetime Alcohol Intake, Binge Drinking Behaviors, and Breast Cancer Risk
- What happens when you drink alcohol?
- Alcohol and Cancer Risk Fact Sheet
- The 90+ Study – UCI MIND
- The impact of moderate wine consumption on the risk of developing prostate cancer
- The NutriNet-Santé Study – Full Text View – ClinicalTrials.gov
- Cancer-Specific and General Nutritional Scores and Cancer Risk: Results from the Prospective NutriNet-Santé Cohort | Cancer Research