ReviewNutrients2021
Alcohol and Cancer: Epidemiology and Biological Mechanisms.
Review in Nutrients, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 214 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
214 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 346 citations in OpenAlex.
- A review of the relationship between dimensions of alcohol consumption and the burden of disease: 2026 update including Mendelian randomisation studies.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Association between alcohol consumption and breast cancer incidence and prognosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Effect of alcohol consumption on oncological treatment effectiveness and toxicity in patients with cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC cancer · 2025Pooled it
- Maternal smoking, consumption of alcohol, and caffeinated beverages during pregnancy and the risk of childhood brain tumors: a meta-analysis of observational studies.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Lifestyle Quality Indices and Female Breast Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Pooled it
- Diet and Esophageal Cancer Risk: An Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Observational Studies.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Pooled it
- Aldehyde Accumulation in Aged Alcoholic Beer: Addressing Acetaldehyde Impacts on Upper Aerodigestive Tract Cancer Risks.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Developing and testing health warnings about alcohol and risk for breast cancer: Results from a national experiment with young adult women in the United States.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Global burden of lip and oral cavity cancer attributable to behavioral risk factors, 1990-2021: a systematic analysis based on the GBD 2021 database.Oral and maxillofacial surgery · 2026Article
- Inverse Association Between Regional Availability of Board-Certified Fellows of the Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society and Colorectal Cancer Mortality in Japan: An Ecological Analysis.JGH open : an open access journal of gastroenterology and hepatology · 2026Article
- Modifiable lifestyle factors and cancer risk in Latin America: A systematic review with meta-analysis.iScience · 2026Article
- Heart involvement in alcohol use disorder: observational and retrospective study in a specialized hospital unit and long-term follow-up.Internal and emergency medicine · 2026Observational
- Associations of alcohol use with expression of stromal markers in benign breast biopsy samples.British journal of cancer · 2026Article
- The effect of health behaviour interventions on alcohol consumption among people living with cancer: a systematic review.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Review
- Article
- Aldehyde Detoxification in Cancer: Metabolic Guardians of the Genome.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Correlation Between Hemoglobin Levels with Muscle Function and the Risk of Sarcopenia in Patients with Cancer of the Digestive System: A Cross-Sectional Study.Muscles (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
154 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Approximately 4% of cancers worldwide are caused by alcohol consumption. Drinking alcohol increases the risk of several cancer types, including cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract, liver, colorectum, and breast. In this review, we summarise the epidemiological evidence on alcohol and cancer risk and the mechanistic evidence of alcohol-mediated carcinogenesis. There are several mechanistic pathways by which the consumption of alcohol, as ethanol, is known to cause cancer, though some are still not fully understood. Ethanol's metabolite acetaldehyde can cause DNA damage and block DNA synthesis and repair, whilst both ethanol and acetaldehyde can disrupt DNA methylation. Ethanol can also induce inflammation and oxidative stress leading to lipid peroxidation and further DNA damage. One-carbon metabolism and folate levels are also impaired by ethanol. Other known mechanisms are discussed. Further understanding of the carcinogenic properties of alcohol and its metabolites will inform future research, but there is already a need for comprehensive alcohol control and cancer prevention strategies to reduce the burden of cancer attributable to alcohol.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.