A new study confirms that smoking raises your risks of the major forms of esophageal and stomach cancers, while drinking has more narrow effects.
In a study that followed more than 120,000 adults for 16 years, researchers found that smoking increased the risk of the two main forms of stomach cancer, as well as the two forms of esophageal cancer, by anywhere from 60 percent to 263 percent.
Alcohol, in contrast, affected only the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, the form found in the upper part of the esophagus. People who drank more than 30 grams of alcohol per day at the study's start -- equivalent to two to three glasses of wine -- were nearly five times more likely to develop the cancer.