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Recently, enthusiasm for addressing alcohol as a significant cancer risk factor has gained attention. Using a large, population-based cohort, we sought to determine independent associations between alcohol consumption and cancer mortality.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We used data from the REGARDS cohort study, which enrolled 30,239 adults 45+\u2009years between 2003 and 2007 and follows them today. At enrollment, participants self-reported alcohol consumption as none, light (\u2264\u20093 drinks\/week), moderate (4\u20137 drinks\/week for women, 4\u201314 drinks\/week for men), and heavy (\u2265\u20098 drinks\/week for women and\u2009\u2265\u200915 drinks\/week for men). We estimated Cox models to determine associations between alcohol consumption and cancer mortality.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>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\u20131.45), and light drinkers had a decreased risk of cancer mortality (0.87; 95% CI 0.78\u20130.98), and there was no association between moderate drinking and cancer mortality.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>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\u2019s lifestyle including physical activity, smoking, diet, and alcohol consumption.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1007\/s11606-026-10479-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T18:18:05Z","timestamp":1777918685000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Reevaluating the Alcohol\u2013Cancer Link: Long-Term Cancer Mortality Outcomes in the REGARDS Study"],"prefix":"10.1007","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6920-8526","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Laura C.","family":"Pinheiro","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ghislaine","family":"Jumonville","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Joanna","family":"Ringel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kate Yao","family":"Berg","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shoshana","family":"Rosenberg","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Emily","family":"Tonorezos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rohit","family":"Chandwani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rulla M.","family":"Tamimi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Erica","family":"Phillips","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"10479_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Murphy SL et al. 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Prevalence of cancer survivors in the United States J Natl Cancer Inst. 2024;116(11):1784\u20131790.","DOI":"10.1093\/jnci\/djae135"}],"container-title":["Journal of General Internal Medicine"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s11606-026-10479-3.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11606-026-10479-3","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s11606-026-10479-3.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T18:18:16Z","timestamp":1777918696000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/10.1007\/s11606-026-10479-3"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]]},"references-count":43,"alternative-id":["10479"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s11606-026-10479-3","relation":{},"ISSN":["0884-8734","1525-1497"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0884-8734","type":"print"},{"value":"1525-1497","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]]},"assertion":[{"value":"24 November 2025","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"13 April 2026","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"4 May 2026","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"order":1,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Clinical Trial Number"}},{"value":"This study was approved by the participating institutions\u2019 Institutional Review Boards. All participants provided written informed consent. All authors have read and approved the manuscript for submission to\n                      JGIM\n                      . This manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethics Approval"}},{"value":"Dr. Pinheiro and Rosenberg receive research funding from Pfizer for investigator-initiated work that is not related to this study. Dr. Chandwani is a consultant for Boston Scientific. The other co-authors have no conflicts of interest or financial disclosures.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Conflict of Interest"}},{"value":"The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NINDS, NIA, NHLBI, or NCI. Representatives of the NINDS were involved in the review of the manuscript but were not directly involved in the collection, management, analysis or interpretation of the data.","order":5,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Disclaimer"}}]}}