Next time you “belly up” to the bar or go for that second glass of wine, you might want to know that alcohol is considered a carcinogen.
When your body metabolizes alcohol, it breaks it down to acetaldehyde, which is a toxic chemical that can damage DNA and proteins. It can raise levels of estrogen, which is linked to breast cancer.
An April study from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers showed that about 16,800 deaths could be prevented annually, if people limited their alcohol consumption.
The current recommendation, if one wants to avoid dying from anything alcohol-related, is two drinks a week or less. With three to six drinks a week your chances of some type of cancer become moderate and with seven or more chances become increasingly high.
A drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of spirits.
Studies have shown that alcohol contributes to about half a dozen types of cancers, including breast and colorectal, and heart and liver.
CTN wrote a longer story this past February, going into greater detail about alcohol click here.
In a Yale Medicine story (“What to Know about Rising Rates of “Early-Onset’ Cancer), it was reported that cancer is on the rise in younger adults.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) in its January Cancer Statistics report wrote “that while cancer deaths are falling, new cases are ticking upwards—from 1.9 million in 2022 to over 2 million in 2023. More of those new cases involve younger people. The ACS report showed younger adults to be the only age group with an increase in overall cancer incidence between 1995 and 2020.”
The ACS report also showed continued increases in such common cancers as breast, prostate, and endometrial in young adults, as well as colorectal and cervical cancers. “Colorectal cancer, while still overwhelmingly a disease that affects older people, is now the leading cause of cancer death in men younger than 50 and second in women in that age group,” the report added.