The Cancer Council Australia (CCA) Alcohol Working Group has published a position statement in the May 2011 Medical Journal of Australia, claiming that alcohol use causes cancer and that any level of consumption “increases the risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer.” According to the statement, an analysis verified by “external experts” found that “the level of risk increases in line with the level of consumption” and that an estimated 5,070 cases of cancer “are attributable to long-term chronic use of alcohol each year in Australia.” It also noted that “alcohol use may contribute to weight (fat) gain, and greater body fatness is a convincing cause of cancers of the oesophagus, pancreas, bowel, endometrium, kidney and breast (in postmenopausal women).”
CCA recommends that consumers (i) reduce “the risk of alcohol-related harm over a lifetime” by drinking “no more than two standard drinks on any day,” and (ii) reduce the risk of alcohol-related injury by limiting themselves to “no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion.” The council has also urged children younger than age 18 and pregnant or nursing mothers to avoid alcohol altogether. “Alcoholic drinks and ethanol are carcinogenic to humans,” concludes the position statement. “There is no evidence that there is a safe threshold of alcohol consumption for avoiding cancer, or that cancer risk varies between the type of alcoholic beverage consumed.”
