Alcohol products must have warning labels like tobacco: AIIMS researchers

Researchers at AIIMS have called for strong evidencebased warning labels on alcohol products to prevent avoidable cancers building on Indias success with tobacco warningsIn an opinion piece titled Expanding behavioural interventions through cancer warning labels in India from cigarette packs to alcohol bottles published in Frontiers in Public Health on July 24 the doctors have highlighted that alcohol like tobacco is a proven carcinogen yet awareness remains lowThe opinion piece by oncologists Dr Abhishek Shankar Dr Vaibhav Sahni and Dr Deepak Saini from the Department of Radiation Oncology Dr BR Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital AIIMS Delhi stated that adolescence forms a crucial period for the initiation and intensification of substance use behaviour including alcoholBehavioural interventions instituted by means of alcohol warning labels may prove to be effective in affecting positive changes in the consumption habits of individuals belonging to this age group particularly in Low and MiddleIncome Countries LMICs where it is all the more important for certain sections of society to be educated and sensitised towards the consequences of substance use the researchers saidThey stated that cancer cases in India have seen a steep rise with data from the 2012 to 2022 period suggesting a 36 per cent increase in incidence 101 million138 millionGLOBOCAN 2022 data saw about 141 million new cancer cases in India with a fiveyear prevalence at around 325 million and a total cancer mortality at 916827Alcohol attributable a fraction for cancer and agestandardised rate per 100000 in India are 47 per cent and 48 per cent respectively according to the GLOBOCAN 2020 dataData from 2016 suggested that 66 per cent of Disease Adjusted Life Years in India were attributable to alcohol consumption which followed that of tobacco at 109 per cent the researchers saidThe researchers also mentioned about the advisory brought out by the US surgeon general in January 2025 regarding the consumption of alcohol and the risk of cancer which stated that alcohol consumption demonstrably elevates the risk for developing at a minimum seven types of cancer colonrectum liver breast esophagus larynx pharynx and oral cavityThe advisory also mentioned the mechanistic links between alcohol consumption and the risk of developing cancer along with the fact that this effect is observable regardless of genderEven before the release of this advisory alcoholattributable cancers have been recognised to contribute significantly to the global burden of disease the researchers saidCancer warning labels on alcohol containers have been observed to be of benefit in reducing alcohol consumption and lowering the perception of consumption they saidThe Global Adult Tobacco Survey GATS in 201617 noted an increase by 16 per cent for health warnings on cigarette packs with pictorial health warnings demonstrating a 50 per cent elevated impact on the intention to quit smoking cigarettesWarnings can be differentiated based on the type of messaging involved into lossframed and gainframed which have an emphasis on associated risksharms and the benefits of quitting respectively the researchers explainedThere is evidence in literature to suggest that gainframed messaging possesses an advantage over lossframed warnings but the research on such aspects has mainly focused on lossframed warnings in the case of cigarette smokingIt is also suggested that a combination of messaging can help inform behaviour change in a more effective manner which is based off the concept of the role individual beliefs play in determining outcomes they saidIndia being an LMIC this trend indicates the effect of cancer warning labels in modifying the behaviour of a significant number of people consuming such products the researchers highlightedThe LMICs may look into expanding the positive experience gained from tobacco warning labels to those pertaining to alcohol containers which clearly state a cancer risk from consumption It may also be useful for these cancer labels to state that there is no lower threshold for alcoholrelated cancer risk along with the types of cancers demonstrably attributable to alcohol consumption so far the doctors saidThey pointed out that a crucial but often ignored aspect while considering warning labels is the multiplicative interaction of smoking and alcohol consumption in determining cancer riskA National Cancer Institute NCI Workshop in December 2020 emphasised the importance of addressing the combined usage of tobacco and alcoholCouse of tobacco and alcohol has been found to be associated with a multiplicative effect in cancer risk particularly for pharyngeal and oral sitesThe importance of reciprocative warning labels on tobacco and alcohol product packaging is further underscored by the fact that alcohol usage has been observed to go up with an increase in cigarette smoking with the former being associated with lower rates of quitting and higher relapse rates in smokersIt may also be worth considering to have helpful or constructive labelling on containers which guide the user to seek medical advice or undergo screening for cancer instead of being terminalistic in its messaging by suggesting graphic or fatal outcomes upon consumption the researchers saidSince cancer as a disease may present as a result of the combined effect of alcohol and tobacco consumption it makes sense to place such cancer warning labels and not address these risk factors in isolation they saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever