UK Study Links Alcohol Consumption to Cancer Risk in Women
Hamilton - A UK study has shown that alcohol consumption is linked to increased risk of cancer in women. As part of the Million Women Study, 1.2 million women were looked at over a period of seven years to search for correlations between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risks.
The study found that women who drank one or more alcoholic beverages per day experienced significantly higher cancer risks than women who did not drink. This increase in risk was particularly relevant to esophagus, throat, rectum, mouth, liver and breast cancer.
This Oxford University Study found that women who drank even small amounts of beer, wine or hard alcohol had a 13% greater risk of cancer overall, with an 11% increase in the risk of breast cancer. The study also found that women who smoked and drank experienced a higher cancer risk than women who smoked but did not drink.
Many experts are proponents of moderate alcohol consumption for heart health; however these new findings suggest that abstinence from alcohol may be the better choice when it comes to limiting cancer risk in women.