Alcohol causes different cancers

The more alcohol you drink, the higher your risk of developing at least seven different types of cancers. Drinking small or moderate amounts of alcohol was associated with increased risks for esophogeal, mouth, voice box, liver, stomach, pancreas and breast cancers, and is responsible for more than five percent of cancers and cancer deaths worldwide.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology ASCO has never addressed the link between alcohol and cancer, but is now underscoring the importance of controlling the risk of alcohol consumption to reducing the risk of cancer. While the ASCO does suggest strategies for cutting back on drinking, it also advocates for temperate use of alcohol, rather than recommending give up drinking.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention CDC recommends that women should not have more than one drink a day or eight drinks a week. Men drink two drinks a day, or 14 a week. There has been some debate over whether alcohol or other compositions of various alcoholic beverages are cancer-causing. There is an associations between alcohol drinking and cancer risk. Alcohol does not affect each part of the body in the same carcinogenic way.

For head and neck and esophageal cancers, alcohol's breakdown product- acetaldehyde, which is an established carcinogen touches the tissues directly as drinker swallows an alcoholic drink and causes cancer. Liver cancer is caused by cirrhosis, which is caused by drinking. When cirrhosis develops, healthy liver cells are replaced by damaged scar tissue cells, which can become cancer cells. It interferes with the absorption of folate, which leads to development of colon cancer.

When a woman’s estrogen levels become abnormally high, the hormone puts her at higher risk for breast cancer. Alcohol has been shown to increase estrogen levels, thus putting women at greater risk of breast cancer. In fact, ASCO reports that women who drank even one drink of beer or wine which have significantly lower alcohol contents than liquors were five percent more likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer, and nine percent more likely to develop the cancer after menopause.
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