Original Article

To examine the association between alcohol consumption habit, types of beverages, alcohol consumption quantity, and overall and cancer-specific mortality among Korean adults. Methods: The alcohol consumption information of a total of 16 320 participants who were 20 years or older from the Korean Multi-center Cancer Cohort were analyzed to examine the association between alcohol consumption habit and mortality (median follow-up of 9.3 years). The Cox proportional hazard model was used to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) of alcohol consumption to mortality ad-justing for age, sex, geographic areas, education, smoking status, and body mass index. Results: Alcohol drinkers showed an increased risk for total mortality compared with never drinkers (HR, 1.72; 95 % confidence inter-val [CI], 1.38 to 2.14 for past drinkers; HR, 1.21; 95 % CI, 1.06 to 1.39 for current drinkers), while past drinkers only were associated with higher risk for cancer deaths (HR, 1.84; 95 % CI, 1.34 to 2.53). The quantity of alcohol consumed per week showed a J-shaped associa-tion with risk of mortality. Relative to light drinkers (0.01 to 90 g/wk), never drinkers and heavy drinkers (>504 g/wk) had an increased risk for all-cause and cancer deaths: (HR, 1.18; 95 % CI, 0.96 to 1.45) and (HR, 1.39; 95 % CI, 1.05 to 1.83) for all-cause mortality; and (HR, 1.55; 95 % CI, 1.15 to 2.11) and (HR, 2.07; 95 % CI, 1.39 to 3.09) for all cancer mortality, respectively. Heavy drinkers (>504 g/wk) showe