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Review
. 2020 Jun;36(3):175-181.
doi: 10.1159/000507232. Epub 2020 Apr 21.

Alcohol Use and Gastrointestinal Cancer Risk

Hans Scherübl  1
Affiliations
Review

Alcohol Use and Gastrointestinal Cancer Risk

Hans Scherübl. Visc Med. 2020 Jun.

Abstract

Background: Alcohol use is an important and potentially modifiable risk factor for gastrointestinal cancers. The more and the longer a person drinks, the higher the risk of cancer becomes. Even modest use of alcohol may increase cancer risk; 100 g of alcohol per week or less is currently considered to be the limit of low-risk use.

Gastrointestinal cancer risk: Alcohol is causally associated with oesophageal squamous cell cancer, gastric cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, and most likely also with pancreatic cancer. Alcohol when combined with tobacco smoking or excess body weight can act synergistically to cause gastrointestinal cancer. Exposure to alcohol may have contributed to the recent incidence increases of early-onset gastrointestinal cancers in some Western countries.

Conclusions: People with long-term risky alcohol use should be encouraged to join cancer screening programmes. Alcohol cessation appears to be effective in reducing the alcohol-induced, increased cancer risk.

Keywords: Alcohol; Cholangiocarcinoma; Colorectal cancer; Gastric cancer; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Oesophageal cancer; Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Non-linear dose-response associations between alcohol intake and risks of oesophageal (squamous cell), gastric, hepatocellular, and colorectal cancers. This material has been reproduced from the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research [4] (with permission).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Combined exposure to alcohol use and cigarette smoking and risk of developing oesophageal squamous cell cancer. Alcohol (ethanol) consumption is given in millilitres of pure alcohol used per day. OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval. The material has been reproduced from Peng et al. [5] (with permission).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Synergistic interaction of obesity and alcohol consumption with the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Hazard ratios showing the risk of HCC stratified by extreme obesity and alcohol use status over a mean follow-up of 11.6 years. BMI, body mass index. The material has been reproduced from Loomba et al. [6] (with permission).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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