What are the long-term cancer risks of drinking one glass of wine daily?

1. Alcohol as a carcinogen: the baseline public-health position

International and U.S. public-health bodies treat ethanol (the alcohol in wine) as a carcinogen and link alcohol consumption to higher risks for several cancers — head and neck, esophagus, liver, colorectal and breast among them — forming the baseline that frames research on wine specifically ^{[4] [5] [1]}.

2. Breast cancer: the clearest signal at one drink a day

Multiple authoritative statements and reviews name breast cancer as the cancer most clearly increased even at low levels of alcohol intake; the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory explicitly states that “even one drink per day may increase the risk of breast cancer” and meta-analyses have quantified small percentage increases per modest amounts of ethanol ^{[1] [2]}.

3. Wine-specific studies: mixed results and some null findings

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that focus on wine report mixed outcomes. A broad systematic review/meta-analysis found no overall increase in cancer risk for several site-specific cancers (colorectal, gynecological, renal) and reported null associations for lung cancer, while noting inverse or J-shaped patterns for some sites in some studies ^[3]. A large 2025 meta-analysis comparing red versus white wine found wine intake was not associated with overall cancer risk when comparing highest vs lowest consumers (summary RRs ~0.98–1.00) though some site-specific differences (skin cancer) appeared ^{[6] [7]}.

4. How to reconcile the public-health alarm with mixed wine data

The apparent tension—public-health bodies warning even one drink raises cancer risk versus wine-focused reviews finding neutral or mixed associations—reflects differences in methods and endpoints: population-level causal judgments use mechanistic evidence and consistent links across many studies (ethanol → carcinogenesis), while wine-specific observational meta-analyses pool heterogeneous studies with variable exposure definitions, confounding (diet, smoking, socioeconomic status), and different outcome measures, producing some null or small effects for particular sites ^{[5] [7] [3]}.

5. Magnitude of absolute risk change matters; women may see the larger effect

Reporting relative risks can exaggerate perceived harm. Some cohort analyses cited by commentators show an absolute increase in alcohol-attributable cancers for daily drinkers compared with rare drinkers on the order of a few percentage points (for example, a study summarized by Johns Hopkins showed an absolute rise of nearly 3% among women who drank daily versus <1 drink/week) — meaning the public-health warning is meaningful but numerically modest for many individuals ^[8]. Cancer risk attributable to alcohol also differs by sex, with breast-cancer risk increases particularly noted for women ^{[1] [2]}.

6. Possible protective signals and confounding: the wine ‘halo’

Some studies report neutral or even inverse associations between moderate wine intake and certain cancers (gastric, some colorectal analyses, lung in J-shaped patterns), often discussed in relation to polyphenols like resveratrol in red wine. However, authors caution these patterns can reflect residual confounding (healthier diets, drinking with meals, socioeconomic differences) and do not overturn mechanistic evidence that ethanol promotes cancer ^{[3] [9] [7]}.

7. What the recent 2024–2025 work changes — and what remains uncertain

Recent meta-analyses and reviews (2024–2025) tighten the evidence base: they reaffirm alcohol’s carcinogenicity, flag breast cancer at low doses, and show wine-specific pooled estimates that are often null for overall cancer but heterogeneous by site and wine type ^{[7] [6] [5]}. Remaining uncertainties include exact dose–response at very low intake, whether red wine’s non-ethanol compounds meaningfully offset ethanol’s harms, and how risks vary by personal factors (genetics, H. pylori, smoking) — available sources do not provide definitive answers on these individualized modifiers ^{[3] [9] [5]}.

8. Practical takeaway for someone who has one glass daily

If you are a woman, the clearest evidence indicates one daily drink modestly increases breast-cancer risk; public-health guidance therefore treats one-daily-drink as non-zero risk ^{[1] [2]}. For other cancers the excess risk from a single daily glass is uncertain and likely small for many individuals, but population-level data and cancer authorities argue no safe lower threshold for cancer risk from ethanol can be assured ^{[4] [5]}.

Limitations and competing views: reporting from wine-focused observational meta-analyses finds many null associations for wine and overall cancer ^{[3] [6]}, while public-health advisories emphasize mechanistic and epidemiological evidence that ethanol increases cancer risk even at low doses ^{[1] [5]}. The discrepancy likely arises from heterogeneity and confounding in observational wine studies versus the broader weight-of-evidence approach used by advisory bodies ^{[7] [5]}.