CRIN THIS ISSUE: Alcohol and cancer risk Disparities in end-of-life costs HPV testing for cervical cancer
Mixed Drinks, Mixed Messages
Is a drink a day healthy or harmful?
One minute you’re feeling festive
and the next you’re wishing you’d
had one less drink. This spring, a
pair of studies sent equally mixed
signals about long-term alcohol
consumption that might baffle
even the most sober teetotaler.
A survey of more than 1 million
middle-aged British women linked
low to moderate alcohol intake
with an increased risk of certain
cancers, researchers reported in
the March Journal of the National
Cancer Institute (JNCI ). In the
same month, a study in the Journal
of the American Geriatrics Society
(JAGS ) upheld the oft-quoted
result that one alcoholic drink a
day actually reduces the risk of
death among people over 55.
The results may seem confusing
for women trying to decide how
much to drink or if they should
drink at all, says Naomi Allen,
a cancer epidemiologist at the
University of Oxford in England and
the lead author of the JNCI report.
Allen and her colleagues at the
university looked at data from
the Million Women Study, a study
of British women who answered
questionnaires at routine breast
screenings between 1996 and 2001.
The researchers followed the
women for more than seven years
and found that those who had one
alcoholic drink a day experienced
an additional 15 cases of cancer
in the mouth, throat, esophagus,
breast, liver and rectum per 1,000
women, compared with women
who didn’t have a daily drink; two
drinks a day correlated with
30 extra cases per 1,000 women.
The strongest link was to breast
cancer. While an extra drink
appeared to decrease the risk
of thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin
lymphoma and renal cell carcinoma,
VEEr
CR | Page No. 8 | Summer 2009
