Even Moderate Drinking Increases Cancer Risks, Warns US Surgeon General

The US Surgeon General has warned the public of the dangerous link between alcohol and cancer. 

Friday morning, Dr. Vivek Murthy released a report that cited various studies linking alcohol to different forms of cancer, calling for warning labels on alcoholic beverages. He noted that alcohol is a leading cause of cancer—and a preventable one at that. 

In a statement, Dr. Murthy revealed that alcohol is responsible for around 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths in the US every year. “Yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” he said.

“Many people out there assume that as long as they’re drinking at the limits or below the limits of current guidelines of one a day for women and two for men, that there is no risk to their health or well-being,” Dr. Murthy added in an interview, per The New York Times. “The data does not bear that out for cancer risk.”

He also said that the risk of cancer rises as alcohol consumption increases, but this also depends on the person and their unique genetic makeup.

“I wish we had a magic cutoff we could tell people is safe,” Dr. Murthy told The New York Times. “What we do know is that less is better when it comes to reducing your cancer risk.”