Dear Doctor: How bad is the cancer risk from my heavy drinking? - OregonLive

Long-term alcohol use does increase the risk for some types of heart disease (especially heart failure), liver disease and cancers.

The data on alcohol-related cancers seems to be everywhere.

ANSWER: Deaths in the United States attributed to excess alcohol are estimated to be nearly 100,000 per year.

Many are due to motor vehicle accidents or other accidental deaths, but long-term alcohol use does increase the risk for some types of heart disease (especially heart failure), liver disease and cancers.

Looking at cancer in particular, women should be concerned about breast cancer, while both men and women should be concerned about cancers of the head and neck, as well as GI cancers (esophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver and colon).

Once excess alcohol intake has ceased, the ongoing risk begins to decrease.

Liver cancer, for example, is extremely rare unless cirrhosis is present, and the progression of liver disease to cirrhosis is greatly slowed or halted by stopping excess alcohol.

There are good screening programs for breast and colon cancer, and you should be meticulous in following those guidelines.

In addition to its effects as a diuretic -- which is probably why you are taking it -- it blocks androgen receptors, and can cause breast development in men, breast pain in women, decreased libido in both men and women, and erectile dysfunction in men.