Alcohol Ups Prostate Cancer Risk

It’s not news that alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer, as well as a few cancers of the digestive system, but now comes research from the University of Victoria suggesting a significant relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of prostate cancer. A U of Victoria news release reports that when the research team looked at 27 studies that attempted to measure the risk at different levels of consumption, they found a statistically significant dose-response relationship between amount of alcohol consumed and risk of prostate cancer among current drinkers. In other words, the more you drink, the greater your risk of prostate cancer. The researchers found that even at low-volume drinking (up to two drinks per day), men had an eight per cent greater risk of prostate cancer compared to lifetime abstainers. But when the researchers examined only those six studies that were originally free of abstainer bias, the risk for low volume drinkers rose to 23 per cent.