--- title: Alcohol and Cancer: Study Shows Even Light Drinking Can Be Risky description: The latest study shows how much alcohol is linked to a higher risk of developing certain cancers canonical: https://time.com/4002182/drinking-alcohol-cancer/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-18T22:30:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T10:15:58.871Z article:section: Health og:title: Can Light Drinking Lead to Cancer? og:description: The latest study shows how much alcohol is linked to a higher risk of developing certain cancers og:url: https://time.com/4002182/drinking-alcohol-cancer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb71ca1056ba6a07c/69878156f887dc32e4e8a59d/time-50-healthiest-foods-red-wine.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1707 og:image:height: 960 og:image:alt: healthiest foods, health food, diet, nutrition, time.com stock, red wine, alcohol og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Can Light Drinking Lead to Cancer? twitter:description: The latest study shows how much alcohol is linked to a higher risk of developing certain cancers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb71ca1056ba6a07c/69878156f887dc32e4e8a59d/time-50-healthiest-foods-red-wine.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Connection Between Light Drinking and Cancer: Study > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Aug 18, 2015 10:30 PM UTC  Danny Kim for TIME  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Aug 18, 2015 10:30 PM UTC Researchers say that indulging in as little as one drink a day for women and two drinks daily for men can boost the risk of breast, colon, oral, liver and esophageal cancers. But the risk was higher for men who smoked, even those who had quit, than for non smokers. Scientists at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital [report in the _BMJ_](http://www.bmj.com/cgi/doi/10.1136/bmj.h4238) on a review of nearly 136,000 men and women enrolled in studies that followed their health-related behaviors and outcomes for 30 years. Overall, those who drank more showed a higher risk of alcohol-related cancers, which wasn’t surprising, given that over-indulging can promote abnormal growths in certain organs like the liver. **MORE:** [5 Things You Need to Know About Alcohol, Backed By Research](http://time.com/3923378/alcohol-research-findings/) But what was more surprising was that, according to their observations, it didn’t take much. Previous studies have focused on heavy drinking, while the current analysis looked at light to moderate drinking. Among women, up to one drink a day contributed to a 13% higher risk of developing alcohol-related cancers, primarily breast cancer. For men, up to two drinks a day also increased the risk of certain cancers, but only for those who had smoked. Non smoking men didn’t show any higher risk. The results suggest that smoking may be an important contributor to certain cancers, especially in combination with alcohol. In fact, says Yin Cao, a post doctoral research fellow at the School of Public Health and lead author of the study, it’s enough to consider becoming even stricter when it comes to imbibing. “For men, especially those who ever smoked, they should limit alcohol to even below the recommended limit,” she says. “And smoking and heavy alcohol consumption should be absolutely avoided to prevent cancer.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4002182/drinking-alcohol-cancer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4002182/drinking-alcohol-cancer/"},"headline":"The Connection Between Light Drinking and Cancer: Study","datePublished":"2015-08-18T22:30:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T10:15:58.871Z","description":"The latest study shows how much alcohol is linked to a higher risk of developing certain cancers","url":"https://time.com/4002182/drinking-alcohol-cancer/","keywords":["Cancer","Alcohol","Smoking","drinking"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb71ca1056ba6a07c/69878156f887dc32e4e8a59d/time-50-healthiest-foods-red-wine.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb71ca1056ba6a07c/69878156f887dc32e4e8a59d/time-50-healthiest-foods-red-wine.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"healthiest foods, health food, diet, nutrition, time.com stock, red wine, alcohol","caption":"healthiest foods, health food, diet, nutrition, time.com stock, red wine, alcohol","creditText":"Danny Kim for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/cancer/","name":"Cancer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4002182/drinking-alcohol-cancer/","name":"The Connection Between Light Drinking and Cancer: Study"}}]}] ```