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How Much IsToo Much If You Drinking In Your 20s?

Posted by Manuela Boyle on 18 March 2022
How Much IsToo Much If You Drinking In Your 20s?

Heavy drinking during early adulthood may raise the risk for alcohol-related cancers, even after drinking stops or decreases in middle age, according to a new study from Australia.

Although alcohol is a known risk factor for cancer, people generally do not expect their heavy drinking in early adulthood to affect their cancer risk many years later, lead author Harindra Jayasekara, MBBS, MD, PhD, with Cancer Council Victoria and University of Melbourne, told Medscape Medical News. But in this analysis, "we found evidence consistent with early initiation and chronic progression of carcinogenesis linked to alcohol and its toxic metabolites."

The study, assessed lifetime drinking trajectories and risk for alcohol-related cancer using data from 22,756 women and 15,701 men recruited to the prospective Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study from 1990-1994. Heavy drinking was considered an average alcohol intake of at least 60 g/day, which is equivalent to the alcohol content in 6 standard drinks.

During 485,525 person-years of follow-up among women, 2303 incident alcohol-related cancers were diagnosed, most commonly breast (64%) and colorectal cancer  (31%). 

During 303,218 person-years of follow-up among men, 789 alcohol-related cancers were found, most commonly colorectal cancer (83%).

The researchers identified three distinct lifetime alcohol intake trajectories for women — lifetime abstainer (39%), stable light (54%), and increasing moderate (7%) — and six for men — lifetime abstainer (14.3%), stable light (51.5%), stable moderate (20.4%), increasing heavy (6.6%), early decreasing heavy (5.1%), and late decreasing heavy (2.2%).

Almost three times more women were lifetime abstainers (39% vs 14% of men). And approximately the same percentage of men and women increased their alcohol consumption over time. About 7% of men were classified as increasing heavy drinkers, consuming a moderate amount of alcohol (30-59 g/day) at age 20-39 and increasing their intake markedly from age 40-49 (over 60 g/day) before reducing it by age 60-69. Among women, 7% were classified as increasing moderate, tending to consume around 20 g/day at age 20-29 and gradually increasing their alcohol intake over time to consume close to 40 g/day at age 50-59.

Among men, the early decreasing heavy group started as heavy drinkers at age 20-39 (≥ 60 g/day) and continued to cut down their intake over time until developing stable light drinking habits by age 60-69, whereas late decreasing heavy drinks continued to drink a lot until age 60-69 before cutting their intake in their 70s.

 

References:

Bassett JK, MacInnis RJ, Yang Y, Hodge AM, Lynch BM, English DR, Giles GG, Milne RL, Jayasekara H. Alcohol intake trajectories during the life course and risk of alcohol-related cancer: A prospective cohort study. Int J Cancer. 2022 Feb 19. doi: 10.1002/ijc.33973. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35182083.

 

Author:Manuela Boyle
Tags:NewsPrevention & RecoveryEvidence Based ResearchCancer

Associations

  • The Institute for Functional Medicine
  • Society for Integrative Oncology
  • Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia
  • Australian Traditional-Medicine Society
  • British Naturopathic Association