Galileo
Footballguy
Is there anything that doesn't cause cancer???
A study to be published in Addiction, a journal for the Society for the Study of Addiction, identifies alcohol as a contributing cause to at least 7 types of cancers. If that is not enough, The study also claims that previously thought benefits of alcohol for cardiovascular disease can be attributed to confounding factors and should be viewed with skepticism.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13477/full
A study to be published in Addiction, a journal for the Society for the Study of Addiction, identifies alcohol as a contributing cause to at least 7 types of cancers. If that is not enough, The study also claims that previously thought benefits of alcohol for cardiovascular disease can be attributed to confounding factors and should be viewed with skepticism.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13477/full
Results
The usual epidemiological understanding of a cause is a factor that increases the incidence of a condition in the population. In the context of a body of epidemiological evidence of an association of alcohol consumption with a disease, the inference that it is a causal association requires alternative explanations of the observed finding to be judged unlikely. Even without complete knowledge of biological mechanisms, the epidemiological evidence can support the judgement that alcohol causes cancer of the oropharynx, larynx, oesophagus, liver, colon, rectum and breast. The measured associations exhibit gradients of effect that are biologically plausible, and there is some evidence of reversibility of risk in laryngeal, pharyngeal and liver cancers when consumption ceases. The limitations of cohort studies mean that the true effects may be somewhat weaker or stronger than estimated currently, but are unlikely to be qualitatively different. The same, or similar, epidemiological studies also commonly report protection from cardiovascular disease associated with drinking but a high level of scepticism regarding these findings is now warranted.
Conclusions
There is strong evidence that alcohol causes cancer at seven sites in the body and probably others. Current estimates suggest that alcohol-attributable cancers at these sites make up 5.8% of all cancer deaths world-wide. Confirmation of specific biological mechanisms by which alcohol increases the incidence of each type of cancer is not required to infer that alcohol is a cause.