Alcohol Use and Cancer in the European Union

Background: Cancers constitute a major non-communicable disease category globally and in the European Union (EU). Summary: Alcohol use has been established as a major cause of cancer in humans. Principal cancer agencies agree that the following cancer sites are causally impacted by alcohol: lip and oral cavity, pharynx (excluding nasopharynx), oesophagus, colon and rectum, liver, (female) breast, and larynx. For all of these cancer sites, there is a dose-response relationship with no apparent threshold: the higher the average level of consumption, the higher the risk of cancer incidence. In the EU in 2016, about 80,000 people died of alcohol-attributable cancer, and about 1.9 million years of life were lost due to premature mortality or due to disability. Key messages: Given the above-described impact of alcohol on cancer, public awareness about the alcohol-cancer link needs to be increased. In addition, effective alcohol policy measures should be implemented. As a large part of alcohol-attributable cancers are in low and moderate alcohol users, in particular for females, general population measures such as increases in taxation, restrictions on availability, and bans on marketing and advertisement are best suited to reduce the alcohol-attributable cancer burden.The first author also acknowledges funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse Ontario Node Grant SMN-13950). This article was also supported in part by the EU Health Programme 2014–2020 under a service contract with the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) acting under a mandate from the European Commission (FAR SEAS – 20187106). The information and views set out in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission/Executive Agency. The Commission/Executive Agency do not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this study. Neither the Commission/Executive Agency nor any person acting on the Commission’s/Executive Agency’s behalf may be held responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained therein. Finally, this contribution was enabled by the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, the Public Health Agency of Catalonia, and the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Catalan Institute of Oncology