Demographic, socioeconomic, disease history, dietary and lifestyle cancer risk factors associated with alcohol consumption

Data are lacking regarding the association of alcohol consumption with a broad range of other cancer risk factors. Objectives: (i) to assess which sociodemographic, lifestyle and dietary factors were associated with alcohol consumption; (ii) to identify profiles of alcohol consumers by beverage type; (iii) to estimate the number of cancer risk factors accumulated on the individual level according to alcohol consumption. Alcohol and dietary intakes were assessed by six 24 hr records among 29,566 adults of the NutriNet-Santé cohort. Factors associated with alcohol consumption (nondrinkers (reference)/< 10 g/day/> 10 g/day) were assessed by polytomic multivariate logistic regression stratified by gender. Among alcohol consumers, percentages of alcohol brought by each beverage type were compared across sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics using Kruskal-Wallis rank tests. Several factors were associated with alcohol consumption > 10 g/day in both genders: older age (pmen = 0.02, pwomen < 0.0001), smoking (pmen&women < 0.0001), higher socioprofessional category (pmen&women < 0.0001), higher income (pmen = 0.003, pwomen < 0.0001) and less healthy dietary intakes. Profiles of subjects varied across alcoholic beverage types. Men with history of cardiovascular disease (p = 0.0002) or depression (p = 0.03) and women with history of cirrhosis (p < 0.0001) consumed less alcohol. In women, personal history of cancer was associated with a lower proportion of moderate alcohol users only (< 10 g/day, p = 0.04). In both genders, higher alcohol drinkers clustered more cancer risk factors (median = 5, apart from alcohol) than nondrinkers (median = 4), p < 0.0001. The multiplicity of deleterious lifestyle behaviors combined with alcohol drinking must be taken into account in cancer prevention efforts. Gender-specific medical advice for people with personal or family history of alcohol-related diseases, including cancer, should be strengthened.