The researchers’ findings, published this week in the scientific journal Nature Genetics, associate lower alcohol tolerance with higher risk of diffuse stomach cancer, a rarer type of gastric cancer that affects more than one area of the stomach.

Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, said the study — which collected cells from nearly 1,500 stomach cancer patients in Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore and the U.S. — is the first extensive genomic analysis of gastric cancer.

“There is an interesting combination between mutation development and a specific genotype in East Asians, which interferes with alcohol metabolism,” Dahut, who was not involved in the study, said. “It seems like having that genotype, they’re more likely to develop a specific mutation of the tumor.”