Bottle of wine has same cancer risk for women as 10 cigarettes

WOMEN who drink a bottle of wine a week have the same cancer risk as if they smoked ten cigarettes, experts have warned.

And men who drink this much have the same odds of getting cancer as if they smoked five cigarettes a week, according to a study.

Researchers wanted to shock moderate drinkers into understanding their cancer risk by comparing it to smoking.

Women are mainly at risk of breast cancer from alcohol, while male drinkers are in greater danger of liver, colorectal, gullet and larynx cancers. Alcohol could cause an extra 339,000 women to develop cancer every year.

Experts at the University of Southampton found for every 1,000 women who drink a bottle of wine a week, which is the national average in Britain, an extra 14 could develop cancer as a result.

Four out of five of these extra patients would have breast cancer. Based on national figures for the lifetime risk of cancer, an extra ten men in every 1,000 would develop cancer from drinking the same ten units a week.

The study takes the same risk of cancer for smoking, which mostly causes lung cancer, to calculate the equivalent threat in terms of cigarettes.

Experts decided to work out the figures after a survey of more than 2,000 adults found only one in eight knew cancer was caused by hazardous drinking.

The risk is much higher for women than men. For those drinking 30 units or three bottles of wine a week, the study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, says it is equivalent to 23 cigarettes a week for women – and eight for men. Dr Theresa Hydes, who led the study, said: ‘We aimed to answer the question, purely in terms of cancer risk – looking at cancer in isolation from other harms – how many cigarettes are there in a bottle of wine?

‘Our findings suggest that the “cigarette equivalent” of a bottle of wine is five cigarettes for men and ten for women per week.’

She added: ‘We must be absolutely clear that this study is not saying that drinking alcohol in moderation is in any way equivalent to smoking.’

However, Professor Linda Bauld, of the University of Edinburgh, said: ‘The public are familiar with the risk of smoking, so it might be a useful comparison for alcohol, but it is important to remember that the two risks are different in some respects.

‘ People should not forget that smoking is linked to 14 types of cancer, while alcohol is linked to seven. That’s an important distinction.’

A spokesman from the Alcohol Information Partnership, which is funded by the drinks industry, said: ‘ The conclusions drawn from this study are both unhelpful and confusing at a time when the public is being bombarded by contradictory warnings of risk.’