Drinking just one glass of white a day ups risk of prostate cancer by more than a quarter

May 9, 2018  22:26

Drinking one glass of white wine a day raises the risk of prostate cancer by a quarter, a major review suggests.

But a daily red wine appears to slash the chance of developing the disease by an eighth.

Researchers analysed the boozing habits and medical records of 611,169 men taken from 17 previous studies.

They found one glass of wine a day made no difference to the prostate cancer risk when pooling all varieties of grape. But after separating them by colour, white was linked to a 26 per cent increased likelihood and red a 12 per cent cut.

The Austrian university team believes the resveratrol in the skin of red grapes has cancer-fighting properties which may counteract the harm of alcohol.

There is around ten times as much of this in red as white.

Study leader Shahrokh Shariat said uncovering the molecular reason for the differences could potentially lead to prevention strategies.

Dr Iain Frame, from Prostate Cancer UK, said: “We would not recommend that anyone changes their drinking habits based on these results alone.

“Instead it’s important all men maintain a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet and limited alcohol consumption.”

A previous study found drinking beer may increase the risk of the most aggressive prostate cancers by 37 per cent.

Around 47,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK each year, with 11,600 dying from the disease.

It is the most common cancer in men, with one in eight suffering from the condition during their lifetime.

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