Alcohol is to blame for one in every 30 cancer deaths each year in the United States annually and just one drink a day can boost the risk of dying from the disease, according to a new study.
'As expected, people who are higher alcohol users were at higher risk, but there was really no safe level of alcohol use,' study author Dr. David Nelson, director of the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, told HealthDay News.
While moderate drinking has been linked to heart benefits, 'in the broader context of all the issues and all the problems that alcohol is related to, alcohol causes 10 times as many deaths as it prevents,' Nelson said.
The study, which was published in the American Journal of Public health on Thursday, found that consuming just 1.5 drinks a day - or less - was associated with up to 35 percent of deaths from seven kinds of cancer.
Among those who consume more than three drinks a day, alcohol was the culprit in up to 60 percent of deaths from those seven cancers.
Overall, nearly 20,000 cancer deaths reported in the U.S. annually are attributable to alcohol, the researchers found.
Roughly 577,000 people die of cancer each year nationwide.