Continued: Daily glass of wine may increase cancer risk

For years, many women have been buoyed by the news about one of their guilty little pleasures: That nightly glass of wine may help them live longer. But now it turns out that sipping a glass of pinot noir may not be such a good idea, after all.

A new study involving nearly 1.3 million middle-age British women -- the largest ever to examine alcohol and cancer in women -- found that just one glass of chardonnay, a single beer or any other type of alcoholic drink per day significantly increases the risk of a variety of cancers.

"That's the take-home message," said Naomi Allen of the University of Oxford, who led the study being published March 4 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. "If you are regularly drinking even one drink per day, that's increasing your risk for cancer."

Understandably, the study may leave many women scratching their heads. Yes, researchers have identified a substance in red wine (remember resveratrol?) that could offer a host of benefits. But the guidelines were intended to set an upper limit on what might be safe, not a recommended daily dose.

The new study is a large-scale attempt to explore all cancer risks posed by more typical drinking levels.

Allen and her colleagues analyzed data collected by the Million Women Study, which since 1996 has been gathering detailed information from 1.28 million women ages 50 to 64.

Even among women who consumed as little as 10 grams of alcohol a day on average -- the equivalent of about one drink -- the risk for cancer of the breast, liver and rectum was elevated, they found. Based on the findings, the researchers estimated that about 5 percent of all cancers diagnosed in U.S. women each year is the result of low to moderate alcohol consumption. Most are breast cancers, with drinking accounting for 11 percent of cases -- about 20,000 extra cases each year -- the researchers estimated.

In any group of 1,000 U.S. women up to age 75 who consumed an average of one drink a day, the researchers calculated there would be 15 extra cancers; two drinks per day would result in 30 extra cancers and so forth.

Allen noted that even less than one drink per day may increase the risk. "There doesn't seem to be a threshold at which alcohol consumption is safe."

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