Alcohol Use Will Increase Your Cancer Risk, Surgeon General Warns

It’s probably not the message you want to hear if you’re a big fan of a glass of wine or a sparkly cocktail—but the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, warned that alcohol use, even in small amounts, can be linked to an increased risk of cancer.

“Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity,” said Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, in a statement released today. “Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States—greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S.—yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.”

The risk isn’t small, either—nearly 17% of all breast cancer cases are attributed to alcohol use, and there is a direct link between drinking alcohol and several other types of cancer, including cancers of the colorectum, esophagus, liver, mouth, throat, and voice box.

So what does this new warning mean—and what should you think about as you consider your own alcohol usage? Here’s the latest on what this means.

How Much Alcohol Use Will Increase Your Cancer Risk?

Unfortunately, any alcohol use at all can increase your risk of cancer—and the more you use it, the higher the risk becomes, according to a global study that included more than 28 million individuals. The Surgeon General’s report suggests that breast, throat, and mouth cancer can increase with even one or fewer drinks per day.

“Current research indicates that even moderate drinking increases the risk of developing breast cancer,” says Elisa Bandera, MD, professor and chief of cancer epidemiology and co-leader of cancer prevention and control at the Rutgers Cancer Institute, who served on panels to develop dietary guidelines on cancer prevention with the American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research/World Cancer Research Fund. “The risk increases as alcohol consumption increases, and the magnitude of this risk depends on the type of cancer, so it is difficult to quantify.”

How Does Alcohol Cause Cancer?

You can blame the ethanol in alcoholic beverages—that chemical that gives you the relaxed vibe from a glass of wine—for creating the chemical reactions that can lead to cancer, according to a full report on the link between the Health and Human Services report on Alcohol and Cancer Risk. There are four different ways that alcohol can create these issues:

• The ethanol can break down into a compound called acetaldehyde that damages DNA, which can lead to cancer.
• Alcohol can also create inflammation in the body by creating oxidative stress—which can damage your DNA as well.
• Alcohol can change the levels of hormones—including estrogen—which is tied to the increased breast cancer risk.
• Alcohol is also a great conduit for other carcinogens to enter your bloodstream.

What Does the New Warning About Alcohol Usage Mean?

You won’t see any immediate changes at your liquor store based on this new warning. But the new report hopes to bring the research findings to light and to change guidelines around alcohol usage. That could include changing the warning label on alcoholic beverages to say that alcohol use is linked to increased cancer risk. (Currently, the labels warn that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can lead to birth defects, and that alcohol can impair judgment when operating machinery.) Any changes to the labels, though, would have to go through Congress for approval.

The Surgeon General also suggested that the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which are due for a revision this year, should be changed to reflect these new recommended limits for alcohol consumption.

But Dr. Bandera says that even if the labels or the dietary requirements aren’t changed, you may want to take these recommendations to heart and consider your own alcohol usage. “I recommend not drinking or limiting consumption to special occasions and within the recommended amounts—less than two drinks per day for men and less than one drink per day for women.”