Association Between Alcohol Consumption and Gastric Cancer

While heavy alcohol intake has been found to increase the risk of upper aero-digestive tract cancers, results are less clear for gastric cancer. This meta-analysis is notable because it was based on a large number of participants from 75 studies, used appropriate analytic methods, and provided dose-dependent results according to type of beverage.

• For total alcohol consumption, the dose-response results show a curvilinear association between alcohol intake and gastric cancer, with a 4% increase in risk per standard drink (12.5 g alcohol).
• In beverage-specific analyses, for beer, a non-linear association was found with a 7% increase in risk per drink. For liquor, there was a linear association (relative risk [RR], 1.03 per drink); and for wine, the RR was 0.99.

Comments: When comparing high versus lower levels of alcohol intake on a linear basis, the authors found a 25% increase in gastric cancer. However, the association was non-linear, and using spline analyses the increase was only 4% per standard drink. Further, beverage-specific analyses found no change in risk of gastric cancer for wine consumers, possibly due to polyphenols in wine that may mitigate some adverse effects of alcohol.

R. Curtis Ellison, MD

Reference: Wang PL, Xiao FT, Gong BC, Liu FN.  Alcohol drinking and gastric cancer risk: a meta-analysis of observational studies. Oncotarget. 2017;8:99013–99023.