B.C. study finds link between pancreatic cancer and alcohol intake

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Friday issued a Surgeon General's Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk. (InnaVlasova/iStockphoto/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

When it comes to pancreatic cancer, a new study out of the University of Victoria has found that lowering your risk, could come down to lowering your glass.

The Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research released its findings Tuesday, into what they believe is the largest meta-analysis of the relationship between alcohol and pancreatic cancer.

It found that having more than a drink and a half per day to be significantly associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

“You can see that the more the dose, the greater the risk,” Tim Naimi, CISUR’s director and an author of the study, told CTV News.

“You can see it sort of take up, increase above a drink a day in particular, and then it becomes what we call statistically significant, like you are beyond the shadow of a doubt, at about 1.5 drinks per day.”

The Canadian Cancer Society estimates that 7,500 Canadians will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2026, and 6,500 people will die from it.

It continues to have one of the lowest survival rates for cancer, due in part to the difficulties in detecting it at an early stage.

Despite the growing body of evidence, the World Health Organization does not include the deadly disease on its list of cancers linked to alcohol.

The study, published in the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, hopes to strengthen that connection.

While analyzing the literature, the research team focused on avoiding studies that had what they call a “former drinker” bias.

“Often people who identify as abstainers in these cohort studies used to be heavy drinkers who quit due to health reasons, meaning they may still be feeling long-term effects of alcohol use, including cancer cases,” Jinhui Zhao, CISUR scientist and the paper’s lead author, explained in a news release.

“There has been a push in recent years to take this bias into account to truly measure alcohol’s health impacts.”

Naimi believes that up to half of the studies have this kind of bias, which counts people who used to be heavy drinkers, the same as people who never were.

“When we did split apart our analysis into studies that control for that particular type of bias, we saw that that risk was quite a bit elevated compared to other studies,” Naimi said.

“We feel that further strengthens the causal connection between alcohol and pancreatic cancer.”

The average British Columbian consumes 8.8 standard drinks per week, and officials believe convincing people to cut back will take more than just awareness.

CISUR teamed up with the office of the Provincial Health Officer in May, to make recommendations to the government on curbing alcohol consumption through policy shifts.

One of those was to include warning labels on alcohol bottles, similar to what you would see on a pack of cigarettes.

“Unlike all other packaged food and beverage products in Canada, there is no information on the serving size, or the number of servings per container, and there is certainly no information about the fact that alcohol causes cancer,” Naimi said.

Another key recommendation is to make alcohol more expensive. “Particularly for the really inexpensive products is to keep their price a bit higher, because people will tend to less overconsume it.”

While the growing cost of alcohol increasingly comes down to more than just the price, Naimi says the aim isn’t to eliminate it completely.

“Alcohol is a legal substance and it’s enjoyed by many people,” he said.

“The idea is you want to shift the balance of people so that they drink, but don’t drink so much that they cause problems for themselves, and those around them.”