New genetic study confirms that alcohol is a direct cause of cancer
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New data from a large-scale genetic study led by Oxford Population Health confirms that alcohol directly causes cancer.
Worldwide, alcohol may cause around 3 million deaths each year, including over 400,000 from cancer. With alcohol consumption rising, particularly in rapidly developing countries such as China, there is an urgent need to understand how alcohol affects disease risks in different populations.
Evidence from Western countries already strongly indicates that alcohol is a direct cause of cancer in the head, neck, oesophagus, liver, colon and breast. But it has been difficult to establish whether alcohol directly causes cancer, or if it is linked to possible confounding factors (such as smoking and diet) that could generate biased results. It was also unclear whether alcohol is linked to other types of cancer, including lung and stomach cancers.
To address these unknowns, researchers from Oxford Population Health, Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Medical Scien...
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