More of cancer at the women who drink the alcohol very moderately

April 08, 2009 Category: Men, Women Print This Article

That they drink moderately or little of the alcohol, the women of middle age who regularly consume some expose themselves to a risk of increased 13% to be reached of having had cancer before 75 years.

It is what takes out the survey again of British Million Women Study, achieved on average from a cohort of 1.2 million of women aged of 55 years. Since 2000, they have all been followed during seven years, in the setting of a national program of tracking of the cancer of the sein.

The increased risk to be reached of a cancer prevails, no matter the type of clear soup alcohol: wine does not cause less cancer than the beer or spirits, according to the results.

These demonstrate that, among the women who take less than three regularly consumption’s of alcohol per day, one observes a growth of 1.5% of the risk.

Concretely, it means 15 additional cases of cancer for every slice of 1 000 women, distribute like follows:

breast cancer: 11 additional cases, cancer of the pharynx, the mouth and the rectum: 1 for each additional case, cancer of the esophagus, the larynx and the liver: 0.7 cases for each additional.
“These numbers can appear minimal at first sight, but as the proportion of women of which the consumption of alcohol is moderate or light is raised, it is about a stake of importing public health,” write the authors of the survey.

For the breast cancer, hold the replacement hormone did not influence the risk attributable to the alcohol, the researchers specify.

Alcohol and tobacco

Otherwise, they noticed that the growth of the risk of cancer of the esophagus, the larynx, the pharynx and the mouth only occurred among the smokers who drink. To explain this particularity, they submit the hypothesis that the alcohol would be able to “to awaken” the carcinogen substances of the tobacco smoke.

Finally, little or to drink some alcohol moderately was associated to a considerable decrease of the risk to be reached of a non-Hodgkin lymphoma (-13%) and of a cancer of the thyroid gland (-25%).

Case of cancer specifically assigned to the alcohol, according to the survey:

Cancer of the rectum: 9% breast cancer: 11% cancer of the liver: 22% cancer of the pharynx, the esophagus and mouth compounds: 25% (among the smokers only) “No quantity of alcohol is safe”

This survey comes to thwart the numerous messages of public health assigning some kindness to a curbed consumption of alcohol on the cardiovascular health.

“Of one ontological point of view, the message can not be clearer: no regular consumption of alcohol can be considered like security, write two physicians in an editorial appeared in the same edition of the newspaper that published the étude2.

According to them, them “modest kindness” that the alcohol can bring to the cardiovascular health must henceforth be considered in a larger perspective. It is necessary to take account of the increased risk of cancer that his consumption can now put. especially at the women of 40 years to 70 years.

“Henceforth, the only reasonable recommendation that we can make to the women of middle age, it is that there is not proof that the alcohol includes some kindness for their health,” they summarize.

The science. with moderation!

For the general manager of the program Éduc’alcool3, Hubert Stacy, the survey includes an important limit. “The analysis is based on the number of consumption’s per day, which however is pulled of the number of weekly consumption’s returned by the participants.”

Thus, data for one week, the women who only drank a glass per day and those that drank seven glasses in opportunity are only one part of the same group of analysis.

“However, the effect on health is not the same: the abusive consumption’s, even occasional, cause a lot more damage than the moderate and regular” consumption, insist Hubert Stacy.

According to him, the alcohol always included the advantages and inconveniences. But he sustains that it is necessary to put them in perspective.

“When a survey indicates that there is a risk of increased 25%, for example, that does not mean that 25% of people risk to fall sick: that means that the relative risk increases of a quarter point”, he varies .

It is why he estimates than even in science, “the moderation has much better taste