A study by a Japanese cancer center of 58,000 men and women has found that men who drink alcohol regularly are twice as likely to develop colon cancer that men who do not drink at all.

Kenji Wakai, a senior researcher of the Aichi Cancer Center, studied the lifestyle of 58,000 people between the ages of 40 and 79 over a three-year period and conducted follow-up studies for the next seven-and-a-half years. During the follow-up period, 420 of the subjects developed colon cancer.

But the study also found that men who drank, but decided to quit during the follow-up period, did not reduce their risk of developing color cancer. Their risk was about the same and those who continued to drink, according to news reports.

More: Alcohol and Cancer Risk | Alcohol-Cancer Connection