Alcohol intake, beverage choice, and cancer: a cohort study in a large kaiser permanente population

Abstract

The authors studied incident cancer risk from 1978 to 1985 and through follow-up in 2012 relative to light-to-moderate and heavy drinking and to the choice of alcoholic beverage in a cohort of 124,193 persons. With lifelong abstainers as referent, heavy drinking (≥ 3 drinks per day) was associated with increased risk of 5 cancer types: upper airway/digestive tract, lung, female breast, colorectal, and melanoma, with light-to-moderate drinking related to all but lung cancer.