Researchers in Britain say the more alcohol a person drinks, the greater their risk of developing bowel cancer.
This is of course very confusing as it implies we should disregard the positive news of late regarding the benefits of a glass of wine or a beer a day, because it now appears that the habit will in fact increase the risk of getting colon cancer by 10 percent, and the more you drink the greater the risk.
What is more the researchers say people who drink two pints of beer a day or two large glasses of wine have an increased risk of 25 percent.
Professor Tim Key an epidemiologist with Cancer Research UK and director of the cancer epidemiology unit in Oxford says the research shows quite clearly that the more alcohol you drink the greater your risk of bowel cancer.
For the study 480,000 people in 10 European countries were questioned about their drinking habits and monitored for a period of six years.
The researchers found that during that period 1,833 people in the group developed colon cancer.
The researchers say the lifetime risk for bowel cancer is one in 20 for men, and one in 18 for women; in the UK 35,000 new cases of colon cancer are diagnosed each year with some 16,000 people dying of it.
In the United States it is estimated new cases colon and rectal cancer will reach 112,340 (colon), 41,420 (rectal) in 2007, with deaths from colon and rectal cancer 52,180.
Cancer Research UK recommends that women should drink less than two units a day and men less than three.