Drinking alcohol--even moderate amounts--can significantly increase the chances a woman will get cancer, according to a new study released Wednesday.

Researchers said about 13 percent of the cancers of the breast, liver, rectum, and upper respiratory/gastrointestinal system may be related to alcohol use. These findings come after years of doctors suggesting that a drink a day can be good for women's heart health.

"That's the take-home message," said Naomi Allen of the University of Oxford, who led the study being published March 4 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. "If you are regularly drinking even one drink per day, that's increasing your risk for cancer."

The huge study looked at nearly 1.3 million middle-age British women and found that alcohol consumption may cause 13 percent of all breast, liver, rectal and esophageal cancers.

Women who have just three to six drinks a week have a 2 percent greater risk of cancer; women who have seven to 14 drinks a week have a 5 percent increased risk of cancer; and for those who have 15 or more drinks a week, their risk of cancer jumps to 15 percent.

In a related commentary, Dr. Michael S. Lauer and Dr. Paul Sorlie, from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, wrote: "Despite its attractions, alcohol has been the proximate cause of a great deal of human misery, now with additional documentation by the elegant report of Allen et. al."

"Perhaps the complex story of alcohol," they add, "can be best summed up by what the great professor Albus Dumbledore said about truth in one of his conversations with his student Harry Potter: 'It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution'."

(Agencies via Xinhua February 26, 2009)