Wine Information Council
08 june 2026
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Alcohol consumption and the risk of pancreatic cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies

Objective: Previous reviews have reported inconsistent relationships between alcohol use and risk of pancreatic cancer (PC). We investigated associations between alcohol consumption and PC in a meta-analysis.

Methods: PubMed and Web of Science were searched for cohort studies of alcohol and PC incidence/mortality up to January 1, 2024. Studies were coded for former drinker misclassification, extent of control for confounding, and other study characteristics. Mixed models were used to model the meta-data and calculate the summarized hazard ratio as relative risk (RR) of PC incidence/mortality. Former drinker misclassification and other study-level covariates were examined and controlled using adjustments, quality weighting and stratification.

Results: Thirty-seven cohort studies provided 279 PC incidence/mortality risk estimates for drinkers versus “non-drinkers”. In pooled analyses with and without adjustment for study-level covariates, there was no significant protection at any level, and significantly increased risk at >24 grams/day. Significant dose-response relationships were observed; e.g., there was a 2.4% increase in PC risk for each 10g ethanol/day increment in the adjusted model (P=0.0001). In stratified analyses, studies with former drinking bias showed significantly reduced PC risk for those drinking >14-24g/day and no significant increase in risk for people drinking >24-44g/day; neither finding was observed among studies with reduced former drinker bias.

Conclusion: Alcohol consumption and pancreatic cancer exhibits a dose-response risk relationship; consumption of >24 grams/day is significantly associated with increased risk. Failing to separate former drinkers from lifetime abstainers may yield spurious protective associations at low levels of consumption and may suppress risk estimates at higher levels.

Additional Info

  • Authors

    Zhao Jinhui; Stockwell Tim; Naimi Tim; Clay James; Lawrence Keegan; Sherk Adam

  • Issue

    Periodical: International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research

  • Published Date

    08 june 2026

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