According to the results of a new research study, “light” alcohol consumption was associated with a significant increase in cancer deaths among older adults, with individuals who had other health problems or lived in low-income areas being most at risk of its deleterious effects.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Network Open, and followed over 135,000 adult participants aged 60 years and older from the UK over the span of 12 years. Led by Dr. Rosario Ortolá, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and public health at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the study aimed to examine whether health-related or socioeconomic risk factors affected the associations of alcohol consumption patterns with mortality among older drinkers.
“There is a continuum of risk associated with weekly alcohol consumption where the risk of harm from alcohol is low for individuals who consume 2 standard drinks or less per week, moderate for those who consume between 3 and 6 standard drinks per week, and increasingly high for those who consume 7 standard drinks or more per week,” states Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health published in January 2023. “Consuming more than 2 standard drinks per drinking occasion is associated with an increased risk of harms to self and others, including injuries and violence.”
The study defined moderate drinking as consuming between 20 and 40 grams of alcohol daily for men and between 10 and 20 grams for women, which was associated with a higher risk of death from all causes and also a higher risk of dying of cancer.
Moreover, heavier drinking, which was defined as over 40 grams of alcohol per day for men and over 20 grams a day for women, was associated with higher deaths from all causes, as well as from cancer and cardiovascular disease. In Canada, a standard drink is defined as 17.05 millilitres or 13.45 grams of pure alcohol.
Moreover, the study results showed that wine preference and consuming alcohol only with meals were associated with reducing the excess mortality associated with alcohol consumption. In his interview with Medical Xpress, Dr. Ortola suggested that this reduction in risk could be attributed to slower alcohol absorption, or could be due to other healthy lifestyle choices by study participants.
“This cohort study among older drinkers from the UK did not find evidence of a beneficial association between low-risk alcohol consumption and mortality; however, we observed a detrimental association of even low-risk drinking in individuals with socioeconomic or health-related risk factors, especially for cancer deaths,” the study concludes. “Finally, these results have important public health implications because they identify inequalities in the detrimental health outcomes associated with alcohol that should be addressed to reduce the high burden of disease of alcohol use.”
