Cancer deaths linked to alcohol consumption in the United States have more than doubled over the past three decades, according to a new study, even as overall cancer mortality in the country fell by roughly a third over the same period.
The research, led by scientists at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, found that annual alcohol-attributable cancer deaths rose from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023.
Alcohol Cancer Deaths: What did the study actually find?
Using more than 30 years of data from the Global Burden of Disease study, an international research effort tracking health outcomes across more than 200 countries, the team calculated that the proportion of cancer deaths linked to alcohol doubled among adults aged 20 and above during the period examined. The rise was not confined to a single cancer type, with increases recorded across breast, liver, colorectal, stomach, pancreatic and prostate cancers, as well as cancers of the head and neck.
“While it’s true that overall cancer mortality has declined, we found the percentage of cancer deaths proportionally attributable to alcohol doubled in people 20 and older over the last 33 years,” said Dr Chinmay Jani, the study’s corresponding author and chief fellow in haematology and oncology at Sylvester.
Alcohol Cancer Deaths: Who was most affected?
Men and adults aged 55 and older experienced the sharpest increases, with alcohol-related cancer mortality among older men climbing by close to a quarter over the study period. Liver cancer remained the strongest alcohol-linked cause of death among men overall, but the picture shifted among younger adults. Jani noted that colorectal cancer had overtaken liver cancer as the leading alcohol-attributable cancer killer among both men and women aged 20 to 54, a trend he described as one of the study’s more unexpected findings.
Alcohol Cancer Deaths: Why does this challenge previous assumptions?
Alcohol has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer since the late 1980s, placing it in the same risk category as tobacco smoke and asbestos. Even so, researchers say public awareness of that link remains limited outside liver disease. Independent experts not involved in the study have previously made similar points about public perception.
Michael Siegel, a professor of public health at Tufts University School of Medicine, has said that people do not typically think of alcohol as a carcinogen in the way they think of tobacco, despite the underlying biology being comparable, since alcohol breaks down in the body into a compound also found in cigarette smoke.
Jane Figueiredo, a professor of medicine at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who was likewise not involved in the research, has said the data underline that people are dying from cancers driven by alcohol even as treatment for the diseases improves.
Alcohol Cancer Deaths: How much alcohol is considered risky?
The study’s authors say even modest, regular consumption, around one standard drink a day, was associated with a measurable rise in cancer risk, a finding consistent with the broader scientific consensus that no level of alcohol intake is entirely risk-free when it comes to cancer. The National Cancer Institute has previously estimated that alcohol was linked to about five per cent of cancer diagnoses and four per cent of cancer deaths in the US in 2019.
Alcohol Cancer Deaths: What comes next for public health policy?
The findings are expected to renew debate over alcohol labelling in the US, where campaigners have long pushed for cancer-risk warnings similar to those already used in some other countries. Researchers say the study strengthens the case for treating alcohol as a modifiable risk factor deserving greater public health attention, alongside longstanding campaigns against tobacco use.
