New research suggests that the combination of drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes increases the risk of throat and stomach cancers.
Researchers investigated risk factors for three kinds of cancers: esophageal adenocarcinoma (throat cancer), gastric cardia adenocarcinoma (stomach cancer) and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (which resembles head and neck cancer).
Past studies have linked cancer of the esophagus to drinking and smoking, but the new research found that people who drank four glasses of alcohol daily had five times the risk of developing esophageal squamous cell carcinoma than nondrinkers. Smoking was related to increased risk of developing all three types of cancer, with risk of throat cancer the most elevated.
“It appeared that current smokers have the highest risks, and former smokers have an intermediate risk compared with never-smokers,” said study author Jessie Steevens, an epidemiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Source: Reuters November 17, 2008