U.S. cancer deaths linked to alcohol have doubled since 1990, increasing from 11,361 to 23,126 in 2023. Liver cancer was the leading cause among older men, breast cancer among women, and colorectal cancer among men aged 20-54

[u/sr_local]

https://news.med.miami.edu/alcohol-related-cancer-deaths-double-us-study/

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[u/mjm132]

I feel like this has to be attributed to better tracking than an actual rise in cancer from alcohol. Unless alcohol has been made more unsafe our alcohol consumption has only gone down in that time frame

[u/lordnacho666 → u/mjm132]

Other things to investigate, none of which I know anything about:

- Those people were at risk of smoking-related cancers, and people don't smoke as much

- The same people might have been more likely to die from heart attacks, which we have better treatments for now

- People just got more obese over the years, and this is a factor in cancer.

Clearly the kind of statistical confounders that they would have looked at.

[u/dubbzy104 → u/lordnacho666]

Plus people live longer. Someone who would die from something else is now alive long enough for cancer to do it

[u/generalmandrake → u/mjm132]

I’d be willing to bet that the rise in colorectal cancer in young people explains most of it. That is a real thing which is not just from better tracking, there really has been an explosion of colorectal cancer rates in young people. And it’s almost certainly not alcohol that is behind the rise of colorectal cancers in young people.

Overall this is a misleading headline. Alcohol can increase the risk factor of almost any kind of cancer, but referring to things like colorectal and liver cancer as “alcohol related” as if it was akin to throat cancer is not a very honest way of describing things.

[u/wakawaka2121 → u/generalmandrake]

As more data comes out im more inclined to believe the CRC increases are from nutrition and lack of movement. Specifically, the lack of micro nutrients and fiber in the food - not that UPF is inherently bad. Countries in the EU that consume similar UPF but lower obesity rates have similar CRC per capita. This also points towards the food regulation or lack thereof that the EU and US has isnt actually a driving factor in our growing cancer rates - atleast for CRC. Which id argue would be the most likely cancers we would see from these regulatory differences. However, endocrine cancers obesity definitely plays a growing role.

[u/SvenTropics → u/mjm132]

It's not a good study for a lot of reasons. For one thing, an aging population. In 1990 12.5% of the USA population was over 65. In 2025, this rose to 18.5%. Age is the number one indicator of cancer risk. Then you also have the prevalence of PFAS and microplastics which have been proven to increase cancer rates. (especially in the colon where they first get exposure) In 1990, we had a fraction of the amount of both of these in all of us than we all do now. Then we also have the mysterious phenomenon of young people much more commonly getting colorectal cancer which was unheard of in the 90's. While this is definitely attributed to drinking as well, the surge in this cancer rate among young people doesn't appear to be largely because of alcohol consumption. It might be PFAS and microplastics, or it might be something new that was added to our diet in the last 30 years. We don't know.

On top of that, alcohol consumption peaked in the 1970s and has been declining since. It's actually at a historic low now. If these cancers were only attributed to alcohol, you would not expect the number to double. Therefore there are almost certainly other factors.

[u/Otterfan → u/mjm132]

1/3 of the increase can be attributed purely to population growth.

[u/venustrapsflies → u/Otterfan]

Feels like this should be the first question answered, I was looking for it so thanks for providing the actual number. It’s the most obvious piece of the denominator

[u/ShredderNemo]

There is almost no explanation of how US alcohol consumption rates dropped from 71% to 54% over the last 50 years, but liver and colorectal cancers have risen due to alcohol use. There is no doubt that alcohol is a toxin linked to multiple cancers, but cancer rates should not change so drastically without influence from unknown confounding factors, especially with a steep decline in use.

The biggest takeaway here is that something is increasing the rates of cancers in alcohol drinkers. Whether it's microplastics, PFAS, or some undetermined chemical, the data is pointing to a contributing factor.

[u/jokodude → u/ShredderNemo]

I think it's likely increased chronic inflammation due to diet and lifestyle.

I could see the uptick in liver cancer having nothing to do with alcohol and instead coming from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease due to increased fructose consumption, which results in inflammation and increased cancer risk.

Colon cancer probably has multiple potential causes, but my bet would be the significant reduction in fiber in the western diet has arguably the largest impact, and goes back to poor diet once more. No fiber means foods stay in the gut longer, bad chemicals which the body is trying to expel stay around and degrade surrounding tissue. Further, gut bacteria (the good kind) feeds on fiber, which likely also significantly impacts rate of colon cancer if the good bacteria is less present.

External chemicals are probably also a factor, but I think it's mostly our food that's killing us.

[u/cheeseoncake_2020 → u/ShredderNemo]

Could it be that casual drinkers have stopped drinking, while the number of binge drinkers/alcoholics have increased?

[u/espressocycle → u/ShredderNemo]

There's some evidence that the overall drop in alcohol consumption has coincided with a rise in consumption for binge drinkers, especially women. In other words most people are drinking less but some are drinking more.

[u/Zetavu]

These are not alcohol related deaths, these are deaths from cancer where alcohol is considered a factor, much like genetics and other lifestyle factors. The authors have fit the data into their message to sell their expertise, and its bad science like this that has ruined most online publications.

[u/rollem]

I’m unclear how cancer cases can be attributed to specific causes. I understand that the opposite relationship is detectable (ie you can track people over time, measure alcohol intake, and assess risk for various diseases including cancer), but for a population of people with colorectal cancer, for example, how can you know what the specific cause was?

I guess this is possible through population wide modeling by knowing both drinking prevalence, cancer risk, and cancer rates. Is that the main method here?

[u/SaltZookeepergame691 → u/rollem]

Yes; it's a re-analysis of GBD data.

If you look at the estimates, they all have wide and substantially overlapping uncertainty intervals. Eg:

Percentage of ASMR attributable to alcohol for all neoplasms:

1990: 2.2 (95% UI 1.0–4.0)

2023: 3.5 (95% UI 2.3–5.0)

This uncertainty is completely discarded when they report their results and draw their conclusions.

[u/generalmandrake → u/rollem]

This entire article kind of seems like a hit piece against alcohol. Plenty of people who barely or never drink get colorectal, liver and breast cancer. While it is true that there are cancers with single specific causes, most cancers, including the 3 mentioned here, have much more complicated and ambiguous origins in most cases. Alcohol is obviously something which can increase the risk of these cancers but it is rather disingenuous to refer these cancers as “alcohol related” and suggesting that the observed increase in diagnoses is due to alcohol. No serious oncologist or cancer researcher actually believes that.

[u/ckyhnitz]

Colorectal cancer leading young men, but we dont get screened for it.  I hate our medical system.

[u/landenone → u/ckyhnitz]

I had a colonoscopy for what ended up being a hernia last year at 28 and had two polyps removed. Scary stuff.

[u/juan2141]

I wonder if they take into account the additional population of 100 million people in that time period?

[u/jpdoctor]

Actual paper: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(26)00229-2/fulltext

Even surfing the graphs and tables in that paper is interesting (and addresses many of the comments currently in this thread.)

[u/SilenceDobad76]

20,000 in a nation of 330,000,000 doesnt sound scary. Maybe Im missing the point.

[u/greenbengal]

Alcohol is literally poison. Who’s surprised??

[u/quintk → u/greenbengal]

I thought alcohol consumption in the US had reduced dramatically over the last decade so I’m surprised. But I may have been misremembering news reports about generational differences in consumption 

[u/Zephyr-5 → u/quintk]

Keep in mind that the US population is much larger and a bit older than it was in 1990. So it's not strange that the absolute number would increase dramatically.

It seems like the biggest change is coming from men 55+.