Does alcohol increase your skin cancer risk?

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, with our high sun­shine lev­els, Aussie/​Kiwi life seems to revolve around the sun, espe­cial­ly in sum­mer. Bar­bi­es, beach­es, boats, par­ties, wed­dings, you name it – many social gath­er­ings hap­pen dur­ing the sum­mer months – and many involve drink­ing alcohol.

We already know that sun expo­sure and heat can mag­ni­fy the effects of alco­hol con­sump­tion – and that too much alco­hol can affect your bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion, and judg­ment! What wasn’t known until recent­ly was how much our ​‘drink­ing cul­ture’ is impact­ing on our hor­rif­ic skin can­cer statistics.

Aus­tralia has one of the high­est melanoma rates in the world with around 16,000 Aussies expect­ed to be diag­nosed with melanoma this year – that’s one per­son every 30 min­utes. And an esti­mat­ed 1,300 Aus­tralians will die of it this year alone.²

Across the ditch in New Zealand, the sta­tis­tics are sim­i­lar. Over 4,000 peo­ple are diag­nosed with melanoma every year – and over 350 Kiwis die of it, every year.³

In both coun­tries, it’s the third most com­mon can­cer for men and women.^2,3

“Recent research sug­gests that alco­hol reduces the amount of time you can spend in the sun before you get a burn,” says Dr. Niy­ati Shar­ma, MoleMap’s Chief Med­ical Officer.

And of course, the more sun­burns you have, espe­cial­ly child­hood sun­burns, the more you’re increas­ing your risk of melanoma.”

Essen­tial­ly there are three main rea­sons why drink­ing in the sun isn’t good for your health – or your skin…

In a small Ger­man study of healthy men, researchers found that alco­hol con­sump­tion increased both the risk of sun­burn devel­op­ing and its sever­i­ty⁵. After con­sum­ing three drinks each, tests showed that the amount of UV light it took to burn the skin was sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than with­out alco­hol. In oth­er words, their skin burned faster.

The researchers hypoth­e­sized that the sun­burn accel­er­a­tion may be due to the low­er lev­els of carotenoids that the par­tic­i­pants exhib­it­ed fol­low­ing alco­hol intake, the deple­tion of which may make the skin more prone to the sun’s effects.

“The results of this study are impor­tant because it tells us that alco­hol can increase the risk of sun­burn — it’s not just because peo­ple for­get to apply sun­screen because they were drink­ing,” says Dr. Shar­ma. ​“Sun expo­sure is the pri­ma­ry risk fac­tor for melanoma. The World Health Organ­i­sa­tion has iden­ti­fied solar UV radi­a­tion as a proven car­cino­gen³, with stud­ies link­ing sun expo­sure to about 90 per­cent of non-melanoma skin can­cers and about 86 per­cent of melanomas, as well as pre­ma­ture skin aging.⁶ These results indi­cate that drink­ing alco­hol can increase this already stag­ger­ing­ly high risk.”

Oth­er stud­ies show that a high­er melanoma risk might not just relate to how much you drink in the sun – but also how much you drink over­all.

Two ​‘meta-analy­ses’, which com­bine results from a num­ber of oth­er stud­ies, found that alco­hol intake was asso­ci­at­ed with the devel­op­ment of basal cell car­ci­no­ma (BCC) and squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma (SCC) — the two most com­mon types of skin can­cer – as well as melanoma.

One of the stud­ies found that the risk of BCC increased by 7% and SCC increased by 11% for every stan­dard beer or small glass of wine (or 10 grams of dis­tilled spir­its) drunk each day.⁸

The oth­er study found a 20% increase in melanoma in drinkers (com­pared to those who don’t drink alco­hol or only drink occa­sion­al­ly) and an increased risk based the amount of alco­hol intake, with a 55% increase in risk for those who drink 50 grams of alco­hol (or five beers!) per day.⁹

If you were already think­ing about reduc­ing your drink­ing, those are some very good rea­son to con­sid­er cut­ting back!

It’s not exact­ly clear why alco­hol increas­es sun­burn, but sci­en­tists have a hunch. As part of the Ger­man study, researchers mea­sured the con­cen­tra­tion of carotenoids in the par­tic­i­pants’ bod­ies (carotenoids are the pig­ments in fruit and veg­eta­bles, which have an antiox­i­dant effect that may help pro­tect our bod­ies against dam­age caused by UV light).

The men’s carotenoid lev­els were low­er after they con­sumed alco­hol, so the researchers spec­u­late that this decline in antiox­i­dants may make the skin more vul­ner­a­ble to the effects of the sun. Two pri­or stud­ies from Japan and France have also shown that peo­ple who con­sume alco­hol reg­u­lar­ly have low­er con­cen­tra­tions of beta carotene.

How­ev­er, the decline in antiox­i­dants does not ful­ly explain why drinkers appear to be at high­er risk of skin can­cers,” says Dr Shar­ma. ​“There are like­ly to be a num­ber of rea­sons. Researchers say alco­hol may act on the body — and skin — in mul­ti­ple ways and acti­vate a chain of reac­tions that could make peo­ple more vul­ner­a­ble to skin can­cer. More research is need­ed to ful­ly under­stand this con­nec­tion, but it’s an impor­tant one.”

We don’t want to spoil the par­ty by sug­gest­ing you nev­er drink again! How­ev­er, we do sug­gest mod­er­at­ing your drink­ing if you’re out in the sun – and/​or mod­er­at­ing the amount of sun you get, full stop. Here are 6 sim­ple tips that might help…

Drink more water — even if you aren’t thirsty. If you’re stuck out in the sun for hours, aim to lim­it your alco­hol intake. But if you do choose to indulge, alter­nate your alco­holic drinks with low-sodi­um flu­ids, such as water or sports drinks. There are plen­ty of deli­cious non-alco­holic drinks and mock­tails around these days!

Pace your­self — because sum­mer drink­ing tends to take place at social gath­er­ings, it’s easy to lose count of how many drinks you’ve had, which can eas­i­ly lead to intox­i­ca­tion, heat exhaus­tion, and an increased risk of sunburn.

Wear sun­screen — wear a high-qual­i­ty SPF30+ sun­screen (or bet­ter still, SPF50+) when­ev­er you’re in the sun. New sun­screen guide­lines for both Aus­tralia and New Zealand rec­om­mend that we should be apply­ing a broad-spec­trum, SFP 30+ sun­screen every day when the UV index is pre­dict­ed to reach 3 or above. ¹⁰

Cov­er up — sun­screen alone won’t pro­tect you from sun­burn if you’re out in the sun for hours. Wear a broad-brimmed hat and sun­glass­es, as well as long-sleeved or high SPF clothing.

Head for the shade — get­ting sun­burnt at any age – whether as a child, teen or adult – increas­es your risk of skin can­cers in lat­er life, includ­ing melanoma⁵. Take every oppor­tu­ni­ty you can to stay under cov­er e.g. under a tree or a tent. If you can’t head for the shade, at least turn your face and neck away from the sun – that will help reg­u­late your tem­per­a­ture and reduce your chances of get­ting fine lines and wrinkles.

Ban the tan – a sun tan is sun dam­age. Try to avoid sun­bathing at all costs – you may think tanned skin looks healthy now but it might not in 20 or 30 years time! Every lit­tle bit of sun dam­age you get over time all adds up to an increased risk of skin can­cer, includ­ing melanoma.

Know your skin can­cer risk – take our quick risk quiz to find out your risk lev­el. Remember, even if you currently have a low risk of skin cancer, that doesn’t equate to "no risk." Regularly check your skin yourself, ideally at least every three months, and consider booking regular skin check or mole check with expert skin cancer detection services at MoleMap skin cancer clinics. Early detection can be crucial in effectively managing skin cancer.

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_{References: 1,4,7,8,9. Harvard Health Publishing, 2017: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/loose-link-alcohol-skin-cancer-2017120812861 2. Melanoma Institute Australia: https://www.melanoma.org.au/understanding-melanoma/melanoma-facts-and-statistics/ 3. Melanoma NZ: https://www.melanoma.org.nz/facts-risk-factors 5. https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/343908 6. World Health Organisation: https://www.who.int/gho/phe/ultraviolet_radiation Melanoma Institute Australia: https://www.melanoma.org.au/understanding-melanoma/melanoma-facts-and-statistics/ 10. https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation-sources/more-radiation-sources/sun-protection-sunscreen}