New Meta-Analysis Investigates Alcohol Consumption and the Risk of Pancreatic Cancer

Researchers performed a meta-analysis on data from over 4 million people in prospective cohort studies, among whom 11,846 incident cases of pancreatic cancer were diagnosed. With people with no alcohol intake or the “lowest” intake as the referent group, the authors defined “light” consumption as an average of 0–12 g alcohol in a day, ≥12–24 g in a day as “moderate,” and ≥24 g in a day as “heavy.”

• Compared with the referent group, patients with “heavy” drinking had a slight increase in risk of pancreatic cancer (relative risk [RR], 1.15); those with “light” (RR, 0.97) or “moderate” consumption (RR, 0.98) did not show an increase.
• The increase in risk was attributed to “heavy” consumption of liquor, as there was no significant increase in risk for “heavy” consumption of beer (RR, 1.08) or wine (RR, 1.09).
• Results showed a significant increase in risk of pancreatic cancer associated with alcohol consumption among men but not women.

Comments:

Among the weaknesses of the study are the combining of lifetime abstainers with those with prior alcohol use in the referent group (which could bias the results for “light” and “moderate” drinking in either direction), using the same cut-points for category of alcohol intake for both men and women, and a lack of data on the patterns of drinking. The lack of a significant association with cancer risk for any level of consumption of beer or wine could relate to the lower concentration of alcohol per volume of the beverage, the effects of non-alcoholic substances (such as polyphenols, present in wine and beer), or even to different drinking practices among participants consuming different beverages, or even to statistical limitations because of variability in the data making detection of effects less likely.

R. Curtis Ellison, MD

Reference:

Wang YT, Gou YW, Jin WW, et al. Association between alcohol intake and the risk of pancreatic cancer: a dose-response meta-analysis of cohort studies. BMC Cancer. 2016;16(1):212.