Light alcohol drinking and the risk of developing cancer, a systematic review.

Abstract

Background: There is strong evidence that heavy alcohol consumption (>50g per day) is a risk factor for several disease, including cancer. However, the oncogenic role of light alcohol drinking (<12,5g per day) is still controversial. The purpose of this review is to assess whether the intake of a single daily dose of alcohol could determine an increased risk of malignancy onset. Methods: A systemic PubMed research of meta-analysis studies, using the keywords “light alcohol drinking”, “light alcohol consumption” and “cancer”, was done. We established a period of 15 years, in order to select the most recent evidences; exclusively meta-analysis that specified levels of alcohol intake were included in the review. Studies focused on biochemical, molecular and genetic aspects, as well as duplicate articles were excluded. Results: We included in this review 29 large meta-analysis; light alcohol drinking was not associated with an increased risk of occurrence of most cancers, with the exception of breast, prostate cancer and, with less evidence, melanoma. Furthermore, a protective role of alcohol assumption on the development of bladder, kidney ovarian cancer and Non Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), has been described.Conclusions: We found that light alcohol drinking do not determine a higher risk for the insurgence of several malignancies, except for a light increase in the incidence of melanoma, breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.