How many cigarettes does a bottle of wine mean? Clever conversion helps the risk science | BMC Public Health

Journal:
Theresa J. Hydes, Robyn Burton, Hazel Inskip, Mark A. Bellis and Nick Sheron
Published: 2019/03/28
Digital ID: 10.1186/s12889-019-6576-9
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A recent study published in the Open Access Journal
suggests that a clear link between cancer and tobacco may provide a way to help change the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and cancer and raise public awareness of the cancer risk associated with alcohol.team from the University Hospital of Southampton, Bangor University and the University of Southampton assessed the cancer risk associated with moderate drinking and compared it to the cancer risk associated with smoking.
Theresa Hydes, co-author of the study, said: "Our study describes the cancer risk corresponding to different alcohol intake levels in the UK population, and our study is the only one that provides a conversion of cancer risk from tobacco and alcohol. "
" we hope to answer the question: purely from the perspective of cancer risk - that is, to strip away cancer and other hazards - how many cigarettes does a bottle of wine amount to? Our results show that a bottle of wine a week is about five cigarettes a week for men and about 10 cigarettes a week for women.
the authors assessed non-smokers and found that drinking one bottle of wine a week had a lifetime cancer risk of 1.0 per cent - that is, a person's lifetime risk of developing cancer. This figure is 1.4 per cent among non-smokers. So if 1,000 men and 1,000 women drank one bottle of wine each week, an extra 10 men and 14 women would have cancer at some point in their lives compared to those who didn't drink. Among men, the most significant cancer risk is concentrated in the digestive tract, while in women, 55% of cases are breast-related cancers.goal of the study is to draw attention to the cancer risks, especially breast cancer, even if it's just moderate drinking, such as a bottle of wine a week. In particular, the authors point out that this is an important issue, given that the most common cancer in British women today is breast cancer.
researchers also found that if you drink three bottles of wine a week (about half a bottle a day) - a level known to cause many different health problems - the lifetime risk of cancer rises to 1.9 percent for men and 3.6 percent for women. This is roughly equivalent to eight cigarettes a week for men and 23 cigarettes a week for women.
. Hydes said, "We have to make it clear that this study is not about telling you that moderate drinking is somehow tantamount to smoking." Our findings are based on lifetime risk across the population. On a personal level, the risk of cancer from drinking or smoking varies widely, and for many people, drinking a bottle of wine can be very different from smoking a 5-10 cigarette.
To calculate the lifetime cancer risk value of drinking a bottle of wine or smoking 10 cigarettes a week, the researchers used Cancer Research UK's lifetime cancer risk data, which were published by the Office for National Statistics, the Scottish Information Service (NHS) The Statistical Services and Recommendations Agency, Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Wales and the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry provided it, and the researchers used published data, including data on the number of cancer cases attributable to people with tobacco and alcohol, as well as relative cancer risk data related to moderate alcohol consumption and tobacco use.
the authors caution that the study is not a comparative study of the overall death rate from smoking and alcohol consumption because it does not take into account smoking or alcohol-related diseases other than cancer, such as respiratory, cardiovascular or liver disease. Dr Hydes said: "We have provided an effective measure for the conversion of risks between cigarettes and alcohol, using past successful advocacy on the risks of smoking to further understand the cancer risks of alcohol. Scientists have now identified a high risk of cancer associated with heavy drinking in the mouth, throat, esophardo, intestines, liver and breast, but these risks are not as widespread among the public as smoking. We hope that by using cigarettes as a reference, we can more effectively help people understand the risks of drinking and make lifestyle choices with full knowledge. ” In contrast to our knowledge about the number of cancers attributed to smoking, the number of cancers attributed to alcohol is poorly understood by the public. We estimate the increase in absolute risk of cancer (number of cases per 1000) attributed to moderate levels of alcohol, and compare these to the absolute risk of cancer attributed to low levels of smoking, creating a ‘cigarette-equivalent of population cancer harm’.Alcohol and tobacco attributable fractions were subtracted from lifetime general population risks of developing alcohol- and smoking-related cancers, to estimate the lifetime cancer risk in alcohol-abstaining non-smokers. This was multiplied by the relative risk of drinking ten units of alcohol or smoking ten cigarettes per week, and increasing levels of consumption.One bottle of wine per week is associated with an increased absolute lifetime cancer risk for non-smokers of 1.0% (men) and 1.4% (women). The overall absolute increase in cancer risk for one bottle of wine per week equals that of five (men) or ten cigarettes per week (women). Gender differences result from levels of moderate drinking leading to a 0.8% absolute risk of breast cancer in female non-smokers.One bottle of wine per week is associated with an increased absolute lifetime risk of alcohol-related cancers in women, driven by breast cancer, equivalent to the increased absolute cancer risk associated with ten cigarettes per week. These findings can help communicate that moderate levels of drinking are an important public health risk for women. The risks for men, equivalent to five cigarettes per week, are also of note.
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) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. The journal has a special focus on the social determinants of health, the environmental, behavioral, and occupational correlates of health and disease, and the impact of health policies, practices and interventions on the community.
(Source: Science.com)