As Americans prepare to ring in New Year’s Eve, new research offers a timely reminder to think about the long-term health impact of raising a celebratory glass – or two. Alcohol is already known to increase the risk of several types of cancer, even when consumed at moderate levels. Despite this, drinking remains common, and key questions remain about how both how often people drink and how much they drink shape their overall cancer risk.
At the same time, alcohol-related cancer risk is not evenly distributed. Certain groups face higher vulnerability, yet many alcohol policies still fail to clearly emphasize the connection between drinking and cancer.
A Large Review Examines Alcohol Use and Cancer Risk
To address these gaps, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine conducted a comprehensive systematic review to better understand how different levels of alcohol consumption – excessive, moderate and even mild – affect cancer risk among U.S. adults.
The team reviewed 62 studies, with participant numbers ranging from just 80 individuals to nearly 100 million people. Their analysis also considered coexisting health conditions such as obesity and chronic liver disease, which can increase cancer risk, and examined how social and demographic factors contribute to vulnerability.
The findings, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, confirm that both the frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption play a major role in cancer risk. Strong associations were found for breast, colorectal, liver, oral, laryngeal, esophageal and gastric cancers. Alcohol use was also linked to poorer outcomes, including more advanced liver cancer and reduced survival among people with alcoholic liver disease.
Who Faces the Highest Risk From Drinking
Higher levels of alcohol consumption were associated with greater cancer risk, particularly among African Americans, people with genetic predispositions, and individuals with obesity or diabetes. Factors such as race, age, education and income further shaped exposure and vulnerability. As a result, lower-socioeconomic groups and some racial and ethnic populations experienced a disproportionate burden, even when their alcohol intake was similar to or lower than that of other groups.
In contrast, people who followed American Cancer Society guidelines on alcohol use and other healthy lifestyle behaviors tended to have lower cancer risk and reduced mortality. This finding points to the importance of combining moderation with broader lifestyle changes.
“Across 50 studies in our review, higher alcohol consumption consistently raised cancer risk, with risk increasing as intake grows,” said Lea Sacca, Ph.D., senior author and an assistant professor of population health in the Schmidt College of Medicine.
“Factors like type of alcohol, age of first exposure, gender, race, smoking, family history, and genetics all influence risk. Certain groups – older adults, socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, and those with comorbidities – are especially vulnerable. Heavy, daily or binge drinking is strongly linked to multiple cancers, highlighting the importance of moderation and following cancer prevention guidelines.”
Beverage Type, Gender Differences, and Other Risk Factors
The review also found that the type of alcoholic beverage may matter in some cases. For example, white wine or beer was linked to a higher risk of certain cancers, while liquor often was not. Clear gender differences also emerged. Frequent drinking was associated with higher risk in men, while episodic heavy drinking posed greater risk in women. Smoking further increased alcohol-related cancer risk, although its effects varied depending on sex and drinking patterns. Other contributing factors included UV exposure (increasing melanoma risk in less-exposed sites) and family history, both of which can strengthen the connection between alcohol and cancer.
Across the studies, additional risk factors included high or low BMI, low physical activity, carcinogenic infections (e.g. hepatitis B and C virus, HPV, HIV or H. pylori, a bacterium that infects the stomach lining), poor diet, hormone use, and specific hair or eye color.
“Biologically, alcohol can damage DNA through acetaldehyde, alter hormone levels, trigger oxidative stress, suppress the immune system, and increase carcinogen absorption,” said Lewis S. Nelson, M.D., co-author, dean and chief of health affairs, Schmidt College of Medicine. “These effects are compounded by pre-existing health conditions, lifestyle choices, and genetic predispositions, all of which can accelerate cancer development.”
Implications for Prevention and Public Health
Based on their findings, the researchers point to targeted approaches that could help reduce alcohol-related cancer burden. These include tailored public health messaging, stronger alcohol-related policies, and focused interventions aimed at people and communities at highest risk.
“Our findings undersore that alcohol-related cancer risk is not driven by alcohol alone, but by a complex interpaly of biological, behavioral and social factors,” said Maria Carmenza Mejia, M.D., co-author and a professor of population health in the Schmidt College of Medicine.
“Recognizing how these forces intersect – shaping exposure, vulnerability and long-term health outcomes – is essential for building a more accurate understanding of cancer risk. This broader perspective reminds us that effective prevention goes beyond reducing alcohol consumption; it requires addressing the environments, habits and underlying health conditions that magnify its impact.”
Reference: “A systematic review on the risk of developing cancer and frequency of alcohol consumption behaviors in US adults” by Isabella Abraham, Gabriella Dasilva, Kayla Ernst, Alexandra Campson, Alana Starr, Christine Kamm, George Kosseifi, Morgan Decker, Sahar Kaleem, Nada Eldawy, Paige Brinzo, Tiffany Follin, Christine Ramdin, Maria Mejia, Lewis S. Nelson and Lea Sacca, 13 November 2025, Cancer Epidemiology.
DOI: 10.1016/j.canep.2025.102956
Study co-authors are FAU medical students Isabella Abraham; Gabriella Dasilva; Kayla Ernst; Alexandra Campson; Alana Starr; Christine Kamm; Morgan Decker; Sahar Kaleem; Nada Eldawy; and Paige Brinzo; and Tiffany Follin, medical liaison and outreach librarian, Schmidt College of Medicine; George Kosseifi, Case Western Reserve University; and Christine Ramdin, Ph.D., instructor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
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5 Comments
From the perspective of a now only relatively healthy eighty-two year old lay American male never diagnosed with any cancer who only quit the regular ingestion of alcoholic beverages in recent years, I regret to inform the authors that their review is just another fatally-flawed study that fails to factor-in the three actual underlying causes of most now epidemic chronic diseases: 1) sub-acute non-IgE-mediated food allergy reactions, 2) allergy aggravating officially (FDA in the US) approved food poisoning (soy, late 1960s; TBHQ, 1972, and added MSG, 1980; minimally) and 3) excessive related/resultant medical errors. More specifically, added MSG was known to harm some, short-term (e.g., “Chinese restaurant syndrome”), with no long-term-multi-generational studies done prior to that FDA approval in 1980, with the US obesity and diabetes epidemics presenting by 1990 and 1994, respectively (CDC data).
What Mr. Shaver just said.
Also, it’s genes, not beans. So much is genetic that other than tobacco, and sometimes even with tobacco,
clearly, your parents demise is most likely to be yours. We see this anecdotally all the time.
If I did cherry pick a few things, I’d say: Poor people drink cheap alcohol, which is unregulated in terms
of labeling. So cheap malt liquor or liquor itself may or does have colorants and who know what else in it
in addition to ethyl alcohol. I mean, those Japanese people who drink sake in Japan seem to live to like
100, as do those who drink local wine. As to the people of color thing, if you see what they eat, that’s a big
part of it. Fried food, cheap food, non-organic food, white flour, too much food, preserved food.
Educated people drink great quality alcohol, eat great quality food and work out like dogs. So, there’s a
lot going on but in the end, article after article tells us that being who we are, who I am, is a death sentence.
So be it.
Exactly. Craft beer is awesome.
The fact that doctors and researchers are simply telling people to drink alcohol in moderation instead of going the distance and telling people hey, alcohol can kill you, don’t consume it at all, don’t drink… tells me that most people consider it pointless to tell someone that. This tells me that alcohol addiction is far more common than everyone thinks. If you feel that consuming alcohol is part of your identity, you have an alcohol problem. If you feel like you can’t live without alcohol, you have an alcohol problem. If you drink alcohol everyday, or even once a week, even if it’s only one drink, you have an alcohol problem. If you can only enjoy social gatherings if you have a drink in your hand, you have an alcohol problem. And social anxiety. If you are grasping at straws trying to find excuses to continue consuming alcohol after you’ve just been told it’s a carcinogen, you have an alcohol problem.
This is a reflection on the nature of most humans, as well as the stressful environment that we call modern society, and the pervasiveness of various anxiety disorders especially social anxiety for which people self-medicate with alcohol so they can continue to deny that they have an anxiety problem. There is so much broken here on so many levels. If you insist on drinking yourself to death, be my guest. But don’t fool yourself. You are giving up on life and slowly committing suicide. There are better options.
The human race has been consuming alcohol probably all of the time we’ve been human and probably before. Other animals consume alcohol in the form of fermenting fruit. The was a time in Britain when people drank beer in preference to water as it was cleaner and therefore more healthy.
If alcohol is so bad how come we’re still here. Also who funded this research?