A Bold Suggestion: Should Alcohol Carry a Cancer Warning?
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen some interesting headlines about alcohol. At the beginning of the year, Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recommended that alcohol start carrying a warning to people that imbibing alcohol can increase their risk of developing cancer, in addition to current warnings about drinking while pregnant. This policy has not been put into place but is a bold suggestion. There has been a growing body of research over the past decade suggesting that drinking alcohol can increase the risk of developing certain cancers, including breast cancer.
Conflicting Data: Alcohol, Mortality, and Cancer Risk
Additionally, a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded that, according to existing research, moderate alcohol use lowers all-cause mortality by about 16% but increases the risk of breast cancer diagnosis by 10%. How do we reconcile these things? Unsurprisingly, it’s the details that matter. Most breast cancers are diagnosed at an early stage, and the most common and easily treated type of breast cancer, estrogen receptor positive (ER+), is the type of breast cancer that is most connected with alcohol consumption. Because of our advances in cancer treatment, alcohol consumption that leads to a breast cancer diagnosis won’t necessarily shorten someone’s life.
Challenges in Studying Alcohol and Cancer
A complicating detail that was mentioned in the NASEM report is that we don’t have clean data on alcohol consumption. There are few existing studies that differentiate non-drinkers from never-drinkers as we do with tobacco use surveys, so there was only a small pool of studies that the NASEM report could draw from for their research. It’s important to separate non-drinkers from never-drinkers because current non-drinkers may have a past of significant drinking. This complicates the data because mixing non-drinkers and never-drinkers can dilute the potential health effects of never drinking alcohol.
How Much Is a Drink? Understanding Alcohol Servings
A serving of alcohol is 14 grams, the equivalent of 1.5 oz of liquor, 5 oz of wine, 8 oz malt liquor (think Mike’s, Truly, or White Claw), or 12 oz of beer. And those are all based on the standard alcohol by volume or ABV of each drink. This is usually shown as a percentage on the bottle, and please be aware that some alcoholic beverages have a higher-than-average ABV. Beers over 5% ABV and malt beverages over 7% ABV, for example, mean that a smaller amount of these high-ABV beverages equals a serving of alcohol. The takeaway is: someone’s one glass of a cocktail or one can or bottle of an alcoholic beverage can actually equal more than one serving size and can put their alcohol consumption over the “moderate” level of one drink per day for women. Each additional drink per day increases the risk of breast cancer by 5%, so please pay attention to ABV and how many ounces your can or bottle contains.
So, what do you do with this information? Whatever makes sense for you. If your glass of wine at dinner is important to you, we aren’t going to tell you to stop, but try small pours. Keep going to happy hour and brunch with friends and consider the ever-increasing lists of mocktails now and then.
Want to learn more?
Check out our previous blogs on alcohol and breast cancer and alcohol trends and women’s health.
