If I stop drinking does that decrease risk of cancer?

Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re worried about getting cancer from 3-4 drinks per year, it sounds like you might be dealing with a fair bit of anxiety.

Stress caused by anxiety is bad for your health and a possible cancer risk, and almost certainly worse for you than 3-4 drinks a year. I don’t want you to now be anxious about your anxiety, but this might be a good thing to focus on to improve your general quality of life (and possibly reduce your cancer risk in the process).

You could start by talking to a doctor or other medical professional about it, or try finding a therapist in your area. The therapist search on https://www.psychologytoday.com/ is a good place to look, or try an online service like Better Help.

[edit: corrected overstatement about stress being a major cancer risk]

3-4 drinks per year won't affect your cancer risk. Unless you've been drinking radium or something.

Jesus, dude. You need a drink.

If you've been drinking 3-4 drinks a year for 7 years, you'd almost decrease your chances of cancer by drinking more lol

3-4 drinks a year is nothing, I have alcohol intolerance (stomach cancer risks) and I can probably drink that.

Maybe 3 or 4 drinks before lunch you may need to worry

You drink 3-4 time a year? It would change absolutely nothing for you stopping drinking. Getting cancer is a game of probability. Risk factors increase the probability (do not necessarily cause cancer). Your 4 drinks don't change anything, don't worry. Thing is different if you drink 3 drinks a day...

Probably but by a very very very very very small amount. So small it's essentially no change at all.

Alcohol, similar to eating red meat, smoking, sunlight, smoked food, etc a cancer risk, but it does not always cause cancer. Given that you lifetime chance of developing cancer is around 50%, a 0.5% increased chance of cancer is fairly insignificant on an individual level (but from a public health standpoint it might be), but a 20% increase is.

A small amount of alcohol like this presents a fairly insignificant risk. There is no truly safe level, but you would have to drink a lot for a significantly increase in cancer risk. At that point you are at a far higher risk of other forms of poisoning. Even just drunkenness itself highly increase your risk of major falls, car crashes, even house fires. With alcohol, cancer is the least of it's problems.

There are some large, easily avoidable cancer risks in daily life, like sunlight exposure, which can be prevented with sunscreen. Whenever you hear that "X causes cancer", always find out how big the effect is, it could be almost insignificant like eating red meat, or a huge risk, like smoking or sunburns .

Actually, if you stop drinking you’ll eliminate the risk of getting cancer from alcohol. That’s a fact. Not drinking any alcohol is the only way to avoid getting cancer from it. Same is true for tobacco.

Now, there are many things that can give you cancer, from environmental factors to genetic ones. So, there are a lot of things not under your control that may still give you cancer.

But if you want to, at least, eliminate the ones you can control, not drinking alcohol and not smoking are two good candidates. There are others, related to your diet that you can control (some related to red meats, for example).

From all I’ve read, there’s no safe level of alcohol intake. So, I became a teetotaler a few years ago. It’s not that bad. There’s are lots of alternatives that still allow you to socialize in a group that’s drinking. If you have any questions, just ask.

Edit: regarding what you ask, the effects are immediate. Same for tobacco. The sooner you stop, the better for your body. Now, you don’t drink much, but if you did, you’ll lose tolerance for alcohol pretty quickly. I can no longer tolerate alcohol, and I don’t even like the smell of it anymore. It’s actually pretty curious.

That's really not a lot of drinking. I guess technically, yes, it would decrease the risk but your risk is already really low at 3-4 servings of alcohol per year.

True enough, but you should try to not worry about cancer as much. Not saying don't stop drinking; only good things can come out of not drinking alcohol, but stress and anxiety are also pretty bad for your health. If this is as bad as it looks, you might wanna talk to a professional.

Nope, no measurable effect.

Note that moderate intake of alcohol can be beneficial to health.

More than 100 prospective studies show an inverse association between light to moderate drinking and risk of heart attack, ischemic (clot-caused) stroke, peripheral vascular disease, sudden cardiac death, and death from all cardiovascular causes.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/drinks-to-consume-in-moderation/alcohol-full-story/

But if you're only considering cancer, then as some of the other answers suggested, cutting alcohol intake to zero could reduce the risk of getting cancer, although the reduction is likely very small that's neglectable.

Only if you're a White Lab Rat. Anything gives them cancer. Otherwise, unless your drinks are in excess of a gallon per glass I don't think you've a worry.

You already have cancer from the one drop of alcohol you drank 7 years ago

I'm going to assume you mean 3-4 drinks per week and not per year. If its per year, your not a drinker (unless these are multiday black out binges).

Alcohol is hard on your liver, so reducing that stress will help your liver stay healthy. Alcohol is processed into fructose, and then into sugar into your blood stream. Cancer cells are typically defined as having mitochondrial dysfunction... meaning they can't eat fat/ketones. Cancer cells can only eat Sugar in the blood stream. If you have cancer and you have excessive sugar in your blood your feeding it!

So yes, if you reduce alcohol consumption, you reduce your cancer risk because there is less food for baby cancer to eat to grow into a big threat.

True enough, but you should try to not worry about cancer as much. Not saying don't stop drinking; only good things can come out of not drinking alcohol, but stress and anxiety are also pretty bad for your health. If this is as bad as it looks, you might wanna talk to a professional.

it might. but the difference would be absolutely marginal. also there's a line between reasonably moderating your life not to die of cancer at 30 and worrying about everything and micromanaging every single aspect of your life to minimize your risk of cancer, which could ironically increase it. i know you didnt say anything like that, but many keep reading that x thing causes cancer and cut it out of their lives, then read that y causes it too and so on, just be reasonable

Drinking alcohol doesn't cause cancer. It destroys your liver. And it would need more like 4 times a week (depending on how much you drink every night).