HeyOn January 3, the US Surgeon General issued an alarming statement a report About the cancer risks associated with something most Americans enjoy frequently: alcoholic beverages.
In the consultation, Dr Vivek Murthy outlined the substantial evidence behind the increased risk of seven types of cancer among people who had one drink a day, or even less.
“What we know with a high degree of confidence is that there is a causal relationship between alcohol and cancer risk,” Murthy says. “The data has been accumulating for some time and is getting stronger and stronger.”
The bulletin notes that alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States after tobacco and obesity, and notes that there are about 20,000 alcohol-related cancer deaths in the country annually. This is more than the annual number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities.
What’s particularly alarming, Murthy says, is that 17% of these deaths occur among people who follow U.S. dietary guidelines: consuming no more than two drinks per day for men, and one drink per day for women. One of the recommendations Murthy made in the consultation is to re-evaluate that advice when the guidance is reviewed later this year. “In my opinion, these data are alarming and warrant a reduction in the guideline maximum [of alcohol consumption]“This is exactly the kind of data that should be taken into account when drafting or updating guidelines,” he says.
Less than half of Americans know that alcohol can increase the risk of some types of cancer, despite mounting evidence supporting this relationship over the past few decades, warnings from major cancer and public health organizations, and classifications of alcoholic beverages as human carcinogens.
“As a cancer specialist, I’m really grateful that the Surgeon General took this action, and that this message is being shared with the public so they can be aware,” says Dr. Ernest Houck, vice president of cancer prevention at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Here’s what you should know.
Does this mean I can get cancer from drinking a glass of wine with dinner?
Overall, people who had one drink a day were 40% more likely to develop any of seven types of cancer — mouth, larynx, voice box, esophagus, breast, liver, colon, and rectum — than those who didn’t drink at all. . The risk was notable for breast cancer: women who drank one alcoholic drink per day had a 10% greater risk of developing this cancer than those who did not drink.
However, a person’s risk will vary depending on their other behaviors (such as smoking), factors such as genetics, and environmental exposure such as pollution or UV radiation. The more drinks people consume daily, the greater their risk.
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Research on alcohol is largely observational; People who drink are compared to those who don’t drink, and their cancer rates are measured over a period of time. Researchers are trying to account for other factors that could explain the association between alcohol and cancer, but they may not be able to fully account for these confounding variables.
So, while the report attributes 100,000 cancer cases in the country each year to alcohol, most cancer cases cannot be traced back to a single cause. “Can we say that something is entirely related to alcohol rather than a variety of other things? Probably not,” says Hook. “But you can, in population studies where you try to account for and mitigate the effect of other variables, see an association between things Such as alcohol and cancer.
How strong is the evidence?
In addition to observational studies in humans, animal studies consistently show that alcohol leads to an increased risk of cancer.
There are also more detailed studies delving into how alcohol contributes to cancer, including how the body breaks down alcohol into a compound that can damage DNA in cells, potentially turning them into cancer cells. Alcohol can also produce harmful oxidant compounds that can lead to inflammation, which can also play a role in cancer formation.
Another theory relates to alcohol’s ability to alter the balance of hormones, including estrogen, which has a role in breast cancer. It is also possible that other carcinogenic agents such as tobacco are more easily absorbed and dissolved in alcohol, accelerating their carcinogenic effects on the body.
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“The message about cancer is very clear: alcohol increases cancer risk at several sites [in the body] “In a convincing way,” Hook says. “Alcohol is a major modifiable cancer risk.”
“Strictly from a cancer perspective, there is no safe amount of alcohol,” says Dr. Noelle LeConte, assistant professor of hematology, medical oncology and palliative care at the University of Wisconsin, who authored the American Society of Clinical Oncology report. Policy statement On alcohol and cancer.
However, the group recognizes that people have different inherent risks of developing cancer, and therefore supports the current recommendation that most men limit themselves to no more than two drinks a day, and that most women consume no more than one drink.
I thought drinking red wine would protect my heart.
The association of alcohol with cancer was the sole focus of the current advisory. Its connection to heart health is somewhat more complex, but the science there is changing, too.
In 1996, the American Heart Association issued consultative Which sent a completely different message than alcohol. She noted that studies showed a 30% to 50% lower risk of heart-related events among people who drank up to two drinks per day compared to those who abstained from drinking.
But additional research with more rigorous control groups and better trial designs in recent years has questioned the potential benefits of alcohol on the heart, with Latest It turns out that even a daily drink can increase blood pressure, a risk factor for heart disease.
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“The relationship between alcohol and coronary heart disease is complex,” the American Heart Association said in a statement to Time magazine. “The risks and benefits of drinking alcohol vary depending on many factors. The American Heart Association looks forward to reviewing in depth the reports that will shape the 2025 U.S. Dietary Guidelines.”
American Heart Association currently It is recommended People should not start drinking if they haven’t already, and if they enjoy drinking, limit themselves to two drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women.
Will the Surgeon General’s advice change alcohol labels?
Murthy is calling for all alcoholic beverages to carry a warning label, similar to the one currently indicating the risk of birth defects for pregnant women who drink alcohol.
Nearly 50 states require warnings about the health risks of alcohol, according to the advisory, but only so South Korea and Ireland I mention cancer specifically, and new warnings in Ireland are expected to start appearing in 2026.
Many cancer experts support a new warning sign, noting that although evidence of alcohol’s dangers has been growing in recent decades, most people aren’t aware of the connection. “We are not here to put us back in lockdown; “We just want people to be aware of the risks so they can act accordingly,” Hook says.
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The cultural and public health development in the United States regarding tobacco and smoking can serve as a useful precedent for changing the way we think about alcohol consumption and its associated health risks. Congress would have to require that the warning be added, as it did with tobacco products after the Surgeon General’s warning in the 1960s. “In terms of scientific data, there is enough to support the warning sign,” says Jennifer Hay, a psychologist and behavioral scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The question is: “How important is this to Congress?” Hay says. “And what kind of evidence would they want to see in order to go ahead and put a warning label?”
She says raising awareness about the dangers of alcohol is just the first step, and will require cultural shifts as well. Alcohol is an ingrained part of how we celebrate and define social fun, but that may be changing. “People smoke in restaurants, people smoke in cinemas; “People smoke everywhere,” Hay says. “It looked cool, it seemed sophisticated, but slowly things changed.”
“It will take some time,” she says. “But if we use what happened with tobacco as a cultural touchpoint for what the country can do, it shows we are teachable.”