Study Compares Gender-Linked Risk Between Drinking Alcohol And Smoking Cigarettes
UPDATE JULY 2, 2019 4:49 PM EST:
Headline updated from "Drinking One Bottle Of Wine A Week Increases Your Risk Of Cancer, Study Says" to "Study Compares Gender-Linked Risk Between Drinking Alcohol And Smoking Cigarettes" to provide clarification.
ORIGINAL STORY 3/29/2019:
By now, you know smoking leads to a higher risk of cancer. The scary commercials, giant warning signs on packs, and subway ads have no doubt crossed your path, whether you are a smoker or not. But the dangers of moderate drinking, researchers from the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust argue, are not as well understood.
With that in mind, they set out to compare the effects of drinking alcohol to that of smoking cigarettes in relation to developing cancer. The goal was to quantify a "cigarette-equivalent of population cancer harm."
What they found won't exactly make you happy if you're a regular wine drinker:
"One bottle of wine per week is associated with an increased absolute lifetime cancer risk for non-smokers of 1.0% (men) and 1.4% (women). The overall absolute increase in cancer risk for one bottle of wine per week equals that of five (men) or ten cigarettes per week (women)."
In smoking terms, the risks associated with drinking one bottle of wine equals out to smoking half a pack of cigarettes a week for women. The reason women's risk is higher is because of the increased risk of breast cancer, researchers note. To look at it another way, for every 1000 men and 1000 women that drink that amount of wine a week, 10 men and 14 women would develop cancer as a result.
Researchers point out that this is not meant to detract from the known dangers of smoking.
"Our findings are not meant to detract from the substantive cancer risks associated with smoking which remains the single largest preventable cause of cancer worldwide, and for which even very low levels of exposure are associated with an increased risk of cancer."
You can read the study in full here.
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