US alcohol-linked cancer deaths more than doubled over three decades, study finds

A study by researchers at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, examining more than 30 years of Global Burden of Disease data, found that annual US cancer deaths linked to alcohol rose from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023. The research was published in August in the Lancet Regional Health.

The study connects alcohol use to higher death risk from breast, prostate, colon, rectal, stomach, pancreatic and liver cancers, as well as head and neck cancers. Older men were affected most severely, though increases appeared across nearly all cancer types, age groups and regions.

Risk even at low intake

Alcohol has for years been designated a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the same category as tobacco smoke and asbestos. Newer findings suggest cancer risk can rise even at modest consumption levels, with effects observed at just 5 to 15 grams of alcohol per day. Since the CDC defines a standard US drink as containing 14 grams of pure alcohol, a single daily drink could be enough to raise risk.

The National Cancer Institute has said alcohol contributed to roughly 5%, or nearly 100,000, of the 1.8 million cancer cases diagnosed in the US in 2019, and to about 4%, or close to 25,000, of the country's roughly 600,000 cancer deaths that year.

The August study found alcohol-related cancer mortality among men aged 55 and older climbed almost 24% over the 33-year span. Among men, liver cancer showed the strongest link to alcohol, followed by esophageal and colorectal cancers. Among women 55 and older, breast cancer was the leading alcohol-associated cancer killer, followed by liver and colorectal cancers.

Early last year, then-US surgeon general Vivek Murthy described alcohol as the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the country, after tobacco and obesity, and called for cancer-risk warning labels on alcoholic beverages.