Bad pandemic behavior could cause cancer
Heavy drinking can bring disease to liver, esophagus
The stress of the coronavirus pandemic has led some people to drink more alcohol, according to recent studies, which could cause an uptick in alcohol-related cancers years down the line, researchers say.
“If there’s a tremendous burden on the health care system from some of these cancers, then we are going to have to really dramatically shift our allocation of resources,” said Dr. Thomas Abrams, director of the Liver Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
More than 700,000 new cancer cases across the globe were linked to alcohol consumption in 2020, according to a recent study published in The Lancet.
The 741,000 new alcoholrelated cancer cases accounted for 4.1% of all new cancer cases in 2020.
About three-quarters of the cases were in men, and most cancers were in the esophagus and liver.
The largest burden of alcohol-related cancer cases was represented by heavy drinking, which is defined as four or more drinks a day.
Moderate drinking, which is two drinks a day, accounted for one in seven cases worldwide in 2020.
“It’s a heavy burden for sure, and these are generally serious cancers with high mortality rates,” Abrams said, adding that it is still too early to tell just how much alcohol-related cancer cases will impact the health care system.
Alcohol use in the United States is a public health problem that appears to have worsened since the pandemic started, according to authors of a recent study published with the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Participants in the study who reported extreme stress due to coronavirus also reported drinking more booze than those who were less stressed.
Stressed participants drank 4.6 more drinks in a 30-day period than nonstressed participants, according to the research.
Almost two-thirds of participants reported that their drinking had increased compared to before COVID-19.
The 4.1% share of alcohol-related global cancer cases is down from 4.9% in 2019, but there is a possibility cases may rise in the future due to increased pandemic drinking, said Abrams. Such cases take years or even decades to develop.
Alcohol causes inflammation and is metabolized in the liver where it turns into a carcinogen. “When you drink alcohol, alcohol in itself is a low-level carcinogen. It’s an irritant, certainly. When you take a drink of hard alcohol, it burns,” Abrams said.
To reduce alcohol-related harms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines recommend avoiding alcohol, or to drink in moderation by limiting yourself to two drinks a day or less for men, and one drink a day or less for women.