Moderate drinking of just three or more alcoholic beverages a week measurably raises women's risk of developing cancer, a recent study revealed.

The research, which appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, was performed at Oxford University using data from more than 1.3 million women in Britain, with an average of 55, who were part of the so-called Million Women Study. Scientists determined that drinking alcohol seems to cause 13 percent of all breast, liver, rectal and upper digestive tract cancers in the women in the study, all of whom filled out questionnaires upon visiting British breast-cancer screening clinics from 1996 to 2001.

Women who took two drinks or fewer per week were taken as the baseline. Compared to them, those who drank three to six alcoholic beverages weekly had a 2 percent greater risk for all forms of cancer. Women who consumed from seven to 14 drinks a week (one to two per day) contracted cancer at a 5 percent higher rate. And those downing 15 or more weekly (two or more a day) had a 15 percent greater risk for cancer.

Alcohol consumption was also connected to a greater risk of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, esophagus and larynx, but only in current smokers (not ex-smokers or never smokers).

The effect of increased cancer rates didn't vary among the type of alcoholic beverage consumed - whether beer, wine, liqueurs or spirits - suggesting that the danger lies in the alcoholic content, since alcohol is the only major element consistently present in each form of drink.

"The risk of cancer was similar in women who drank wine exclusively and in women who drank a mixture of alcoholic drinks," said study author Naomi Allen, of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University. "This suggests that alcohol, rather than other substances contained in specific alcoholic beverages, is the most important factor in determining cancer risk."

Referring to these results, Michael Lauer, director of the Division of Prevention and Population Sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., wrote in an editorial that "there is no level of alcohol consumption that can be considered safe."

Scientists have long known that drinkers have a higher incidence of breast cancer, but little research has been done on the relationship between alcohol and women's cancer. Regarding how alcohol might increase cancer risk, Allen speculated that "there is evidence that moderate alcohol intake - at the levels studied here - increase circulating levels of sex hormones, which are known to be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer."

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Sources: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/Story?id=6949629&page=1

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/24/women.cancer.drinking/index.html?section=cnn_latest

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