• Posted May 23, 2025

Alcohol-Related Cancer Deaths Double In The U.S.

FRIDAY, May 23, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Alcohol-fueled cancer deaths nearly doubled in the United States during the past three decades, with cases among men driving this surge, a new study says.

Between 1990 and 2021, deaths from alcohol-related cancers leaped from just under 12,000 deaths per year to just over 23,000, researchers are slated to report Saturday at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Men accounted for about 70% of the alcohol-related cancer deaths in 2021, with more than 16,500 such deaths, results show.

“That’s a big and concerning rise,” said lead researcher Dr. Chinmay Jani, a hematology and oncology fellow at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“We need to increase awareness of this link among the general population and even in the medical field,” Jani added in a news release. “There’s a lot of awareness about, for example, tobacco and the risk of cancer. But for alcohol, that awareness isn’t there.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office issued an advisory, warning Americans of the strong evidence linking alcohol to cancer, researchers said in background notes.

In fact, alcohol has been classified as a cancer-causing substance by the International Agency for Research on Cancer since 1987, notes the National Cancer Institute. The U.S. National Toxicology Program has considered alcohol a known human carcinogen since 2000.

Despite this, many folks still don’t think of alcohol as a cancer risk factor.

A 2019 survey from the American Institute for Cancer Research found that while 89% of Americans know that tobacco is linked to cancer, only 45% of people know alcohol is as well, researchers said in background notes.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data from the Global Burden of Disease database, a public dataset that captures disease information from around the world and estimates risk factors that likely contribute to illness and death.

The research team looked at all cancer deaths, as well as at specific cancer types known to be influenced by drinking. These include breast, liver, colon, throat, voice box, mouth and esophageal cancers.

Most alcohol-related cancer deaths in 2021 were caused by liver cancer (7,408 deaths), followed by colon cancers (4,687 deaths) and esophageal cancers (3,948 deaths), researchers report.

And among all cancers combined, the percentage of deaths likely to due to alcohol increased by nearly 50% between 1990 and 2021, researchers reported.

Alcohol consumption is responsible for a larger percentage of cancer deaths than in the past, even as improved screening and treatment drive down the overall number of deaths, researchers said.

The increase in alcohol-related deaths appears to be entirely due to an increase among men, researchers found. Deaths among women have declined slightly since 1990.

Alcohol can increase cancer risk by causing damage to DNA and altering levels of hormones, researchers said.

But more research is needed on how biological differences between people might affect their individual risk for alcohol-related cancer, researchers said.

“We hope that our study will help educate the public on the impact of alcohol on individual cancer risk, as this is a potentially modifiable factor,” senior researcher Dr. Gilberto Lopes, chief of medical oncology at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, said in a news release. 

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about alcohol and cancer risk.

SOURCES: University of Miami, news release, May 22, 2025; National Cancer Institute, May 2, 2025