Moderate Alcohol Intake Reduces Lymphoma Risk, Says UK Study

A new study published in the British Journal of Cancer suggests that moderate alcohol intake is associated with a reduced risk of a number of frequently-diagnosed subtypes of lymphoma.

The study used data from the Million Women's Study, a United Kingdom-based study that recruited about 1.3 million middle-aged women between 1996 and 2009 (women were followed for an average of 10.3 years) until death emigration or cancer registration. Any risk factors they had were assessed by way of questionnaire, and the adjusted relative risks were estimated by Cox regression.

The Million Women Study collaborators recorded 9,162 incident cases of hematological cancers in follow-up, along with 2,072 myeloid cancers.

What they found was that among predominantly "moderate alcohol drinkers," those with higher alcohol intake had a lowered risk of developing either diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (which is the most frequently diagnosed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) or follicular lymphoma (which is the second most frequently diagnosed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma).

They also determined a reduced risk among those same recruits for developing plasma cell cancers, such as multiple myeloma or acute myeloid leukemia.

It should come as no surprise that they also found that higher cigarette consumption was associated with an increased risk of Hodgkin's lymphoma, mature T-cell lymphomas and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), once known as pre-leukemia. MDS can develop into aggressive AML.

Researchers believe that future research should be conducted into what the mechanism might be that allows moderate consumption of alcohol to lower one's risk of myelomas and certain B-cell lymphomas.

Source: BJC