A new study shows that one drink a day of any alcoholic beverage may increase the risk of breast cancer in women by 15 percent.
According to the research from British Medical Journal (BMJ), breast cancer and other alcohol-related diseases were more prone to those women who drink alcoholic beverages even just once a day. The same findings have been found for men, except that men who are at risk of alcohol related diseases were also considered smokers.
The study was done by examining cancer cases of almost 88,100 women and 48,000 men aging over 30 who participated in the US Nurses' Health Study and US Professionals Follow-up study.
The researchers wanted to found out if drinking alcoholic beverages alone were the only reason that a person is associated with increased cancer risk. The subjects were interviewed about their drinking and smoking habits to draw results. The findings showed that the median consumption of alcohol for the interviewed sample were 1.8g a day for women and 5.6g in men.
The study also showed that a woman who drinks 5 to 14 grams of alcohol per day may increase the risk of breast cancer by 13 percent. That would be an equivalent of one drink a day. 10 grams of alcohol is considered as one standard drink.
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) explained their guidelines. "For healthy men and women, drinking of no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury."
Other findings in the study include the increased risk of cancer related diseases for those individuals, either men or women who were involved in both smoking and drinking.
Dr. Jurgen Rehm of the Center for Addiction and Metal Health in Toronto Canada said that more studies and research should be conducted in various places including first world countries.
"Finally, people with a family history of cancer, especially women with a family history of breastcancer, should consider reducing their alcohol intake to below recommended limits, or even abstaining altogether, given the now well established link between moderate drinking and alcohol-related cancers," Dr. Rehm stated.
