TY - JOUR
T1 - Cancer incidence among Danish brewery workers
AU - Thygesen, Lau Caspar
AU - Johansen, Christoffer
AU - Grønbaek, Morten
AU - Strandberg-Larsen, Katrine
N1 - (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
PY - 2005/9/20
Y1 - 2005/9/20
N2 - Since the foundation of the Danish Brewery Workers' Union (BWU) in 1898, an integrated issue in the labour contract between the BWU and the employers implied that the breweries provided 6 bottles of beer to each brewery worker per day. The objective of our study is to investigate if this presumably high daily consumption of beer is associated with increased risk of cancer, particularly cancer of colon and rectum. The cohort has previously been followed until 1972, but with our study we add further 27 years of follow-up. The cohort comprises all male members of BWU employed for 6 months or longer in a brewery between 1939 and 1963. From the original cohort of 14,313 workers, it was possible to identify 13,051 brewery workers (91.2%). The identified brewery workers were linked to the Danish Cancer Registry for any cancer diagnoses during 1943-1999. The incidence rate of all Danish men was applied to calculate the expected number of cancers, standardised incidence ratios for age and time trend (O/E) were computed. A total of 3,928 cases of cancer were observed compared to 2,835.8 expected (O/E, 1.39; 95%-CI, 1.34-1.43). Significantly elevated risk of cancers was seen for cancer sites such as the buccal cavity, the digestive organs, the respiratory system and the urinary system. Members of the cohort were at a slightly but highly significant increased risk of both colon cancer (O/E, 1.26; 1.11-1.42) and rectum cancer (O/E, 1.31; 1.14-1.49). Our study shows that a high beer consumption is related to increased risk of several specific cancers, which supports that the relationship is of a causal nature.
AB - Since the foundation of the Danish Brewery Workers' Union (BWU) in 1898, an integrated issue in the labour contract between the BWU and the employers implied that the breweries provided 6 bottles of beer to each brewery worker per day. The objective of our study is to investigate if this presumably high daily consumption of beer is associated with increased risk of cancer, particularly cancer of colon and rectum. The cohort has previously been followed until 1972, but with our study we add further 27 years of follow-up. The cohort comprises all male members of BWU employed for 6 months or longer in a brewery between 1939 and 1963. From the original cohort of 14,313 workers, it was possible to identify 13,051 brewery workers (91.2%). The identified brewery workers were linked to the Danish Cancer Registry for any cancer diagnoses during 1943-1999. The incidence rate of all Danish men was applied to calculate the expected number of cancers, standardised incidence ratios for age and time trend (O/E) were computed. A total of 3,928 cases of cancer were observed compared to 2,835.8 expected (O/E, 1.39; 95%-CI, 1.34-1.43). Significantly elevated risk of cancers was seen for cancer sites such as the buccal cavity, the digestive organs, the respiratory system and the urinary system. Members of the cohort were at a slightly but highly significant increased risk of both colon cancer (O/E, 1.26; 1.11-1.42) and rectum cancer (O/E, 1.31; 1.14-1.49). Our study shows that a high beer consumption is related to increased risk of several specific cancers, which supports that the relationship is of a causal nature.
KW - Beer
KW - Colonic Neoplasms
KW - Humans
KW - Incidence
KW - Male
KW - Neoplasms
KW - Occupational Diseases
KW - Rectal Neoplasms
U2 - 10.1002/ijc.21076
DO - 10.1002/ijc.21076
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 15838831
SN - 0020-7136
VL - 116
SP - 774
EP - 778
JO - Radiation Oncology Investigations
JF - Radiation Oncology Investigations
IS - 5
ER -
