Alcohol consumption and risk of common cancers: evidence from a cohort of adults from the UK.

Background: Recent guidelines from the UK recommend that men and women should drink no more than 14 units of alcohol per week. This recommendation takes into account the link between alcohol and several cancers; however, there is a dearth of high quality evidence from the UK to support this.

Methods: Alcohol consumption using a detailed diary was obtained from 8670 adults representative of the UK population in 1984/5, with follow-up data from cancer registries until 2009.