Most people connect alcohol to liver disease, not cancer. But the National Cancer Institute says alcohol raises the risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, breast and colon and rectum, and that even light drinkers can have an increased risk of some cancers.

For women, breast cancer is the one that matters most. NCI's numbers compare drinkers with non-drinkers: light drinkers were 1.04 times as likely to get breast cancer, moderate drinkers 1.23 times, and heavy drinkers 1.6 times. These are pooled groups of light, moderate and heavy drinkers from many studies, not exact amounts per day.

This isn't about judging anyone. It's about having the numbers so you can decide what fits your life.

These are the Surgeon General's estimates of a woman's lifetime risk, up to age 80, of developing one of the alcohol-related cancers: about 17 in 100 for women who drink less than one drink a week, about 19 in 100 at one drink a day, and about 22 in 100 at two a day. That is roughly 2.5 more cases per 100 women at one drink a day and 5 more at two.

The estimates come from a large Australian study of 226,162 people, recalculated using U.S. drink sizes, and the comparison group is women who drink less than one drink a week, not necessarily women who never drink. They are population estimates, not a prediction of what will happen to any one woman.

Those are the honest numbers. The risk isn't a cliff. It rises with each additional drink, so cutting down helps even if you don't stop.

NCI says researchers have hypothesized several ways, including the ones below. The Surgeon General's advisory says acetaldehyde and oxidative damage have the strongest evidence.

A U.S. standard drink has about 14 grams of pure alcohol. Many real-life pours are bigger.

A restaurant or home wine pour in a large glass can easily be more than 5 ounces, so your two glasses of wine may be closer to three drinks. Strength matters too: a 12 fl oz beer at 8% alcohol is about 1.6 standard drinks.

The American Cancer Society's guideline says it is best not to drink alcohol, and that for those who do, the limit is no more than 1 drink a day for women. The 2025 to 2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise consuming less alcohol for better health. AICR says avoiding alcohol is best for lowering cancer risk. None of these means one drink a day is risk-free: cancer risk can rise even at low levels of drinking.

NCI says people who use both alcohol and tobacco have much greater risks of cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box and esophagus than people who use either alone. For oral and pharyngeal cancers the harm of using both is multiplicative.