Alcohol intake significantly tied with colorectal cancer risk: Study

Findings:

• High alcohol consumption, and to a lower extent, also alcohol abstinence were associated with increased CRC risk.
• Compared to low alcohol consumption (0·1-<25 g/d), lifetime average alcohol consumption ≥25 g/d was more strongly associated with EOCRC
• Interactions between alcohol consumption and PRS did not reach statistical significance for either EOCRC or LOCRC risk. The estimated impact of high lifetime alcohol consumption on EOCRC was equivalent to the effect of having 47 percentiles higher PRS, stronger than the impact on LOCRC

Thus, excessive alcohol use was strongly associated with EOCRC risk, independent of PRS levels. Abstaining from heavy drinking could reduce risk for CRC, in particular for EOCRC to an extent that would be equivalent to having a much lower genetically determined risk.

Reference:

Alcohol consumption, polygenic risk score, and early- and late-onset colorectal cancer risk by Xuechen Chen et al. published in the E Clinical Medicine.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101460

Keywords:

E Clinical Medicine, Alcohol intake, influences, colorectal cancer, risk, Xuechen Chen, Hengjing Li, Feng Guo, Michael Hoffmeister, Hermann Brenner