Even a few drinks may raise women's cancer risk

BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Chinese medianet) -- Drinking alcohol --

even moderate amounts -- can significantly increase the chances a woman will get

cancer, according to a new study released Wednesday.

Researchers said about 13 percent of the cancers of

the breast, liver, rectum, and upper respiratory/gastrointestinal system may be

related to alcohol use. These findings come after years of doctors suggesting

that a drink a day can be good for women's heart health.

"That's the take-home message," said Naomi Allen of

the University of Oxford, who led the study being published March 4 in the

Journal of the National Cancer Institute. "If you are regularly drinking even

one drink per day, that's increasing your risk for cancer."

The huge study looked at nearly 1.3 million

middle-age British women and found that alcohol consumption may cause 13 percent

of all breast, liver, rectal and esophageal cancers.

Women who have just three to six drinks a week have a

2 percent greater risk of cancer; women who have seven to 14 drinks a week have

a 5 percent increased risk of cancer; and for those who have 15 or more drinks a

week, their risk of cancer jumps to 15 percent.

In a related commentary, Dr. Michael S. Lauer and Dr.

Paul Sorlie, from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, wrote:

"Despite its attractions, alcohol has been the proximate cause of a great deal

of human misery, now with additional documentation by the elegant report of

Allen et. al."

"Perhaps the complex story of alcohol," they add,

"can be best summed up by what the great professor Albus Dumbledore said about

truth in one of his conversations with his student Harry Potter: 'It is a

beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great

caution'."

(Agencies)