ALCOHOL LINKED TO 1 IN 25 GLOBAL CANCER CASES

Men account for more than three quarters of the estimated cases

Alcohol consumption was linked to 4 per cent of all new global cancer cases last year, according to a study published on Wednesday, as researchers warned of an urgent need to alert people of the risks.

Men accounted for more than three quarters of the estimated cases, which were mainly linked to risky or heavy drinking, although one in seven of these alcohol-related cancers were linked to moderate consumption of around two drinks a day.

The study, published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, estimated that there were more than 6.3 million cases in 2020 of mouth, pharynx, voice box larynx, oesophageal, colon, rectum, liver, and breast cancer — all of which have established links to alcohol.

Researchers also used a selection of data on alcohol sales, production, tax and consumption to estimate how much people drank per day in countries around the world in 2010 — giving a decade for the effect to materialise in possible cancer cases.

They estimated that 4 percent (741,300) of all new cases of cancer around the world in 2020 were associated with alcohol consumption, with men accounting for 77 per cent (568,700 cases) of these and women 23 per cent.

The study found that the number of new cancer cases linked to alcohol consumption varied widely across the world, with the highest rates seen in East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe and the lowest in North Africa and Western Asia.

The highest proportion of alcohol-related cases were estimated in Mongolia, China, Moldova, and Romania, while the lowest were in Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. The parts of the world with the highest proportion of women estimated to have new alcohol-related cancer included in Belarus, Romania and Russia, Australia and New Zealand and Western Europe.

Cancers of the oesophagus (189,700 cases), liver (154,700), and breast (98,300) were the most common.

“We urgently need to raise awareness about the link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk among policy makers and the general public,” said study author Harriet Rumgay of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France. —