Alcohol-related cancer deaths in US have more than doubled over three decades — SkimNews
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- Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers analyzed more than three decades of Global Burden of Disease data and found annual US alcohol-attributed cancer deaths climbed from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023, according to their study published in August in the Lancet Regional Health.
- Alcohol consumption was linked to increased death risk from breast, prostate, colon, rectal, stomach, pancreatic, and liver cancers, along with cancers of the head and neck — a range far broader than liver cancer alone.
- Men aged 55 and older saw the heaviest impact, with the alcohol-related cancer mortality rate in that group rising nearly 24% over the 33-year period.
- Liver cancer had the strongest alcohol association among men, followed by esophageal and colorectal cancers; among women 55 and older, breast cancer was the leading alcohol-linked cancer killer, followed by liver and colorectal.
- Just one drink per day — 14 grams of pure alcohol under the CDC's standard-drink definition — could raise cancer risk, with elevated risk linked to intake as low as 5 to 15 grams daily.
- The National Cancer Institute estimated alcohol accounted for about 5% (~100,000) of the 1.8 million US cancer cases in 2019 and roughly 4% (~25,000) of that year's ~600,000 cancer deaths.
- Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the US, behind tobacco and obesity, and urged cancer-risk warning labels on alcoholic beverages.
Why it matters: With alcohol classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer — alongside tobacco and asbestos — the Lancet Regional Health data quantifies a doubling of mortality that complicates public-health messaging around moderate drinking. Older men carry disproportionate risk growth, and the study's finding that even a daily drink raises cancer odds gives Murthy's stalled warning-label push fresh evidentiary support against roughly 25,000 annual alcohol-linked US cancer deaths.
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