Researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center analyzed three decades of Global Burden of Disease data and found that annual cancer deaths attributed to alcohol consumption rose from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023. The study, published in August in the Lancet Regional Health, documented increases in mortality across multiple cancer types previously thought to have weaker alcohol associations.
The research identified elevated cancer risk from eight major cancer types linked to alcohol use, including breast, prostate, colon, rectal, stomach, pancreatic, and liver cancers, as well as cancers of the head and neck. The impacts were not distributed uniformly across populations. Older men experienced the most significant effects, with the alcohol-related cancer mortality rate among males aged 55 and older increasing nearly 24% during the 33-year study period. Among this demographic, liver cancer showed the strongest association with alcohol, followed by esophageal and colorectal cancers. For women aged 55 and older, breast cancer emerged as the leading alcohol-linked cancer mortality cause, followed by liver and colorectal cancers.
The research underscores that even modest alcohol consumption poses cancer risks. Studies have linked elevated risk to intake levels of 5 to 15 grams per day, which is comparable to a single standard drink as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has long classified alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen, placing it alongside tobacco smoke and asbestos.
According to the National Cancer Institute, alcohol consumption accounted for approximately 5% of the roughly 1.8 million cancer cases diagnosed in the US in 2019 and approximately 4% of the roughly 600,000 cancer deaths that year. Early last year, a former surgeon general identified alcohol use as the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the US, behind tobacco and obesity, and called for warning labels on alcoholic beverages regarding cancer risks.
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