A Large Part of the Population Is Unaware That Cancer Can be Caused by Alcohol Agence France-Presse
go to original November 21, 2016

The results of a 10-year long study into cancer is worrying for those who like to drink wine, beer or other types of alcohol. The study concludes that even moderate amounts can cause cancer. Al Jazeera's Caroline Malone explains. (Al Jazeera English)

Alcohol consumption caused more than 700,000 new cancer cases and around 366,000 cancer deaths in 2012, mainly in rich countries, according to data reported to the World Cancer Congress in Paris.

Comparing the cancer risk of people who drink, to that of people who do not, researchers calculated that alcohol was responsible for an estimated five percent of all new cancer cases, and 4.5 percent of deaths per year.

"A large part of the population is unaware that cancer can be caused by alcohol," study co-author Kevin Shield of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), told AFP of the preliminary report, not yet published.

Alcohol was most strongly linked to new breast cancer diagnoses - more than one in four of all alcohol-attributable cancer cases, the researchers found, followed by colorectal cancer at 23 percent.

For breast cancer, particularly, it was clear that "the risk increases with the dose" of alcohol, said Shield.

Read the rest at ABS-CBN

Related: Yucatán, Mexico's Number One State in Alcohol Abuse: El Universal (The Yucatan Times)

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