One significant lifestyle factor well-known to cause cancer is drinking. Alcohol can cause about 200 types of disease and injury in the body, including cancer. Alcohol can cause cancer in many organs: liver, esophagus, pharynx, oral cavity, larynx, breast, colon and rectum.
The cancer-producing effect of alcohol is the function of ethanol. It doesn’t depend on the type of beverage. Cancer can happen with any alcoholic drink. It is also dose-dependent. It means that the more we drink, the more we are the risk. Now, a good question is how much alcohol is safe? The answer is zero. So, if you don’t drink, it is recommended that you don’t start. However, if you drink, and you don’t want to stop drinking, the recommendation is to keep your drinking at a moderate level.
Moderate drinking
What is a moderate level? There are no universally accepted standards for low-risk alcohol intake. The following table shows guidelines issued by health authorities in some western countries:
| Country | Men (Gram/week) | Women (gram/week) |
| Canada | 204 | 136 |
| US | 196 | 98 |
| Germany | 168 | 84 |
| New Zealand | 150 | 100 |
| Australia | 140 | 140 |
| UK | 112 | 112 |
| Francde | 100 | 100 |
All these figures are for healthy adults. They do not include people with medical conditions and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The concept of one drink
As you see, there are different guidelines in different countries on how much to drink to have the lowest risk of harm from alcohol. Usually, it is somewhere around 14-29 g of alcohol per day.
14 g alcohol/day can be found in 12 ounces of beer (5% alcohol content), 8 ounces of malt liquor (7% alcohol content), ounces of wine (12% alcohol content), 1.5 ounces or a “shot” of hard liquor with 40% alcohol content, like gin, rum, vodka, whiskey.
In the US, 14 g of alcohol is considered ONE DRINK. According to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol consumption should not exceed the following amounts:
• For women and men over 65: One drink/day, No more than three drinks /day and no more than seven drinks/ week
• For men under 65: Two drinks per day, No more than four drinks/day and no more than 14 drinks/week
In the UK the allowable amount is different. According to NHS guidelines, ONE DRINK is 8 g alcohol, and men and women are equally allowed to have 14 drinks per week. So one 6 oz glass of wine is 2.1 drinks, and people are allowed less than seven glasses of wine per week. As mentioned above, different countries have different sets of standards, but one thing about which we can be confident. For those who want to drink alcohol, moderation is the best policy.
If you are interested in learning how alcohol and other lifestyle habits can cause cancer and what we need to do about them, check the following link.
