Contrary to WHO, recent medical research shows that wine is safe for cancer

One of the main points that I made in my previous blog post (Recent science reports suggesting that wine alcohol is usually safe to drink) was that the World Health Organization's recent attack on drinking alcohol has focused mainly on cancer as a cause of health problems. Other commentators, however, have emphasized alternative medical issues, which may be less troublesome.

You should read that previous post to set the scene. This obviously has a big effect on the wine industry, affecting wine sales especially among the young people.

In this new post, I will take a more recent look specifically at cancer in relationship to wine consumption. I will look at the range of the other health issues next week, noting that they are also not necessarily as big a deal as has been made out. So, we can all continue to safely drink wine (in moderation).

First, however, it is worth mentioning that there actually is a good reason for the WHO’s focus on cancer. If we take the USA as but one example, we can see that Cancer has been recorded as the No. 2 cause of death, behind Heart disease, as shown in the first figure (from Leading causes of death in the US, 2019—2023). So, anything that potentially increases cancer risk is worth looking at, as far as health is concerned.

However, it is also important to note that wine is not the same as other forms of alcohol intake, especially in terms of the medical effects. Indeed, a very recent research publication (31 January 2025) compiled the results from 42 medical research studies concerning the effects of wine on people in relation to cancer (Consumption of red versus white wine and cancer risk: a meta-analysis of observational studies). This has made it clear that cancer is not associated with wine intake, as opposed to other forms of alcohol or other health issues.

So, this publication (Nutrients 2025, 17:534) was based on a search of the medical literature, in which 8 studies were found from the 1990s and 34 from the 2000s. There were 24 studies found from the US / Canada and 18 in Other regions, which are quite respectable sample numbers. The organs studied for cancer included: skin, lung, kidney / urinary tract, colon / rectum, prostate, ovary, and female breast.

The detailed summary of the publication is this:

 

Objectives: While alcoholic beverage consumption increases cancer risk, red wine has been touted as a healthier option. To address this unexplored question, we conducted a meta-analysis to summarize evidence from observational studies.

 

Methods: A literature search of PubMed and EMBASE through December 2023 identified studies examining wine and cancer risk. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to estimate relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for an association between wine intake and overall cancer risk.

Results: A total of 20 cohort and 22 case–control studies were included. Wine intake was not associated with overall cancer risk (n = 95,923) when comparing the highest vs. lowest levels of consumption, with no differences observed by wine type (red: summary RR = 0.98 [95% CI = 0.87, 1.10], white: 1.00 [0.91, 1.10]; Pdifference = 0.74). However, white wine intake was significantly associated with an increased risk of cancer among women (white: 1.26 [1.05, 1.52], red: 0.91 [95% CI: 0.72, 1.16], Pdifference = 0.03) and in analyses restricted to cohort studies (white: 1.12 [1.03, 1.22], red: 1.02 [95% CI: 0.96, 1.09], Pdifference = 0.02). For individual cancer sites, there was a significant difference in associations between red and white wine intake only in skin cancer risk [6 studies, white: 1.22 (1.14, 1.30), red: 1.02 (0.95, 1.09); Pdifference = 0.0003].

Conclusions: We found no differences in the association between red or white wine consumption and overall cancer risk, challenging the common belief that red wine is healthier than white wine. Our significant results related to white wine intake in subgroup analyses warrant further investigation.

The situation is now quite clear. The WHO's 2023 publication in The Lancet that: “no safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers and health can be established” (Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption) has two limitations. First, it pools all alcohol types together, rather than looking at wine separately — and wine is very different in terms of its health effect. Second, it does not take into account the 2025 publication concerning the effect of wine on cancer — this points out that the medical studies do not find any important effects of wine consumption on human cancer.

As a final point, it is also worth noting the comments about WHO made by Ramon Estruch:

When it comes to the WHO declaration, Prof. Estruch has some scepticism about the methods used. 

 

First, the declaration was based on the Global Burden of Disease work, and he says the results were confounded because the general consumption of alcohol across the world was dropped into the mix, and the specific way that alcohol is consumed is extremely important.

“Context is very important in the effects of alcoholic beverages,” he says. “Drinking gin outside of meals is not the same as drinking wine with meals. The frequency of consumption is also important.”

He says another problem was that some studies considered weekly consumption of alcohol, rather than daily consumption. “It’s not the same. If you have one drink, seven days a week, it’s not the same as seven drinks in one day. That’s binge drinking.”