Heavy drinking is linked to prostate cancer: Research

Heavy drinking not only increases the risk of aggressive prostate cancer, but also the drugs, which protect men against the disease, cannot undo the damage of high alcohol consumption.

Alan R. Kristal, associate head of the cancer prevention program at the Seattle Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and colleagues, decided to clarify the association between drinking and prostate cancer.

In addition, they wanted to determine whether alcohol consumption affected Finasteride’s (a drug to slow the growth of the cancer) ability to prevent prostate cancer.

The study
Scientists examined the associations of total alcohol, type of alcoholic beverage, and drinking pattern with risks of total, low and high-grade prostate cancer.

They followed more than 10,000 healthy men with no sign of prostate cancer. Over seven years, researchers measured their behavior, including diet and alcohol consumption. They observed them to see whether new cancers had occurred or not. At the end of seven years, all men got a prostate biopsy.

Observations by researchers
During the trail 2,129 men developed prostate cancer and 8,791 had negative biopsies.

The researchers found participants who reported heavy alcohol consumption (50 or more grams of alcohol/day) and regular heavy drinking of having more than 4 drinks a day, at least 5 days a week, were twice as likely to be diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer. Less heavy drinking was not associated with risk.

Most heavy drinkers in the study drank beer, Kristal said. "They are six-pack-a-day drinkers," he said. "But there is no logical reason to think there is anything special about beer that increases the risk that does not apply to other forms of alcohol."

Finasteride ineffective in heavy drinkers
The scientists also examined drinking patterns among men enrolled on a placebo-controlled trial of the drug finasteride. They found that heavy drinking made the drug Finasteride ineffective in preventing prostate cancer.

"For low-grade cancer, finasteride decreased the risk by 43% among men who drank <50 g of alcohol per day and increased the risk by 12% among heavy drinkers," the researchers noted.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society states that the study provides vital information on heavy drinking and aggressive prostate cancer.

He further added, "And one of the take-away messages we have is that drinking a lot of alcohol is a risk factor for developing aggressive prostate cancer."

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the findings appear in the journal, Cancer.