Alcohol consumption and risk of gastric cardia adenocarcinoma and gastric noncardia adenocarcinoma: A 16‐year prospective analysis from the NIH‐AARP diet and health cohort

• Published in: International journal of cancer Vol. 143; no. 11; pp. 2749 - 2757
• Main Authors: Wang, ShaoMing, Freedman, Neal D., Loftfield, Erikka, Hua, Xing, Abnet, Christian C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-12-2018; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adenocarcinoma; Adenocarcinoma - etiology; Adenocarcinoma - pathology; Aged; alcohol; Alcohol Drinking - adverse effects; Alcohol use; Alcoholic beverages; Beer; Beverages; Cancer; Cardia - pathology; Diet; Diet - adverse effects; Ethanol; Etiology; Female; Gastric cancer; gastric cardia adenocarcinoma; gastric noncardia adenocarcinoma; Health risk assessment; Health risks; Heterogeneity; Humans; Male; Medical research; Middle Aged; Minority & ethnic groups; NIH‐AARP; Proportional Hazards Models; prospective analysis; Prospective Studies; Risk Factors; Smoking; Stomach Neoplasms - etiology; Stomach Neoplasms - pathology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Wine; alcohol; prospective analysis; gastric cardia adenocarcinoma; NIH-AARP; gastric noncardia adenocarcinoma
• ISSN: 0020-7136; 1097-0215
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.31740

The role of alcoholic beverages in the etiology of gastric cancer is unclear. Recent summaries showed a positive association between higher alcohol intake and gastric cancer risk, but the magnitude of association is small, there is moderate heterogeneity among studies, and most cases were from Asian populations. We prospectively investigated the associations of alcohol consumption with gastric cardia adenocarcinoma (GCA) and gastric noncardia adenocarcinoma (GNCA) in 490,605 adults, aged 50–71 years at baseline who participated in the NIH‐AARP diet and health study. Alcohol consumption in the past year was assessed at baseline by questionnaire and defined as total grams of ethanol intake per day or as a categorical variable: nondrinker, up to or including one drink per day, one to three drinks per day and greater than three drinks per day. We used multivariable‐adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression to calculate the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations between alcohol intake and risk of gastric adenocarcinomas. Through 2011, 662 incident cases of GCA and 713 of GNCA occurred. We found no association between higher alcohol consumption and GCA or GNCA, when examined as total alcoholic beverage intake or individual beverage types of beer, wine and liquor. Furthermore, we observed no association by stratum of sex, ethnic group, educational level or smoking status. We did, however, observe lower risk of GNCA among participants who drank up to one drink per day (HR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.67–0.97) compared to nondrinkers. In conclusion, alcohol consumption was not associated with increased risk of GCA or GNCA in this large U.S. cohort.
What's new?
Alcohol appears not to raise risk of gastric cancer in an American population, a new study indicates. Recently, the World Cancer Research Fund International Continuous Update Project added stomach cancer to the list of alcohol‐caused cancers, based largely on studies of Asian populations. Yet East Asians are more likely to possess a genetic variant that affect alcohol metabolism and carcinogen formation. Here, the authors analyzed alcohol consumption reports and gastric cancer diagnoses from nearly 500,000 adults in the US, and found no association between risk of gastric adenocarcinoma and drinking alcohol.