Alcohol and breast cancer

The relationship between alcohol and breast cancer is clear: drinking alcoholic beverages, including wine, beer, or liquor, is a risk factor for breast cancer, as well as some other forms of cancer. Drinking alcohol causes more than 100,000 cases of breast cancer worldwide every year. Globally, almost one in 10 cases of breast cancer is caused by women drinking alcoholic beverages. Drinking alcoholic beverages is among the most common modifiable risk factors.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has declared that there is sufficient scientific evidence to classify alcoholic beverages a Group 1 carcinogen that causes breast cancer in women. Group 1 carcinogens are the substances with the clearest scientific evidence that they cause cancer, such as smoking tobacco.

A woman drinking an average of two units of alcohol per day has 13% higher risk of developing breast cancer than a woman who drinks an average of one unit of alcohol per day. Even light consumption of alcohol – one to three drinks per week – increases the risk of breast cancer.

Heavy drinkers are also more likely to die from breast cancer than non-drinkers and light drinkers. Also, the more alcohol a woman consumes, the more likely she is to be diagnosed with a recurrence after initial treatment.