(posted on LinkedIn 28 Aug 2026)
If you’re interested in 1) research on cancer and alcohol and 2) an example of how researchers tend to skew their results to emphasize harms, go no further than a recent article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, published May 2026 (Pinheiro et al “Reevaluating the Alcohol-Cancer Link:L Long-Term Cancer Mortality outcomes in the REGARDS study”).
This analyzes data in a longitudinal study of people enrolled in the research cohort in the early 2000s. I’m not going into the details, what fascinates me is the difference between the conclusions and the results. (I learned of this study when someone sent me an overview published in Wine Spectator 30 Sept 2026. Thanks to him who shall remain unnamed here).
The conclusions at first seem pretty dire and linked to clinical guidance:
Our findings contribute to the growing evidence that heavy alcohol use is consistently linked with higher cancer mortality. We encourage cancer prevention strategies to step away from isolating single health behaviors and consider holistic perspectives of an individual’s lifestyle including physical activity, smoking, diet, and alcohol consumption.
Nothing surprising here eh?
But consider the Results of the study [I emphasize a few items] which don’t seem entirely in step with the conclusions:
Among 26,694 participants, mean age was 64.4 (SD 9.4) years, 44% were male, 42% were Non-Hispanic Black, 63% reported no alcohol, 22% light, 11% moderate, and 4% heavy alcohol consumption. Over a median 13.3-year follow-up, we observed 2306 cancer deaths. After full adjustment for covariates, compared to abstainers, heavy drinkers had an increased risk of cancer death (1.21; 95% CI 1.01–1.45), and light drinkers had a decreased risk of cancer mortality (0.87; 95% CI 0.78–0.98), and there was no association between moderate drinking and cancer mortality.
That is a very different downstream outcome than results from a focus on cancer and heavy drinking.
light drinkers had a decreased risk of cancer mortality… and there was no association between moderate drinking and cancer mortality.”
Pinheiro et al 2026
Given that this is a longitudinal study directly looking at outcomes rather than using population level data, it’s meaningful… and powerful… but we often see with alcohol harm research, the researchers focus on the harm rather than the counter narrative of the light and moderate drinkers (which btw were also a larger proportion of their cohort).
It’s open access, so read it here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-026-10479-3
Reference
Pinheiro, L.C., Jumonville, G., Ringel, J. et al. Reevaluating the Alcohol–Cancer Link: Long-Term Cancer Mortality Outcomes in the REGARDS Study. J GEN INTERN MED (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-026-10479-3
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