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Alcohol Can Cause Irreversible Genetic Damage To Stem Cells, Says Study (theguardian.com)

A new study, published on Wednesday, states that drinking alcohol produces a harmful chemical in the body which can lead to permanent genetic damage in the DNA of stem cells, increasing the risk of cancer developing. From a report: The research, using genetically modified mice, provides the most compelling evidence to date that alcohol causes cancer by scrambling the DNA in cells, eventually leading to deadly mutations. During the past decade, there has been mounting evidence of the link between drinking and the risk of certain cancers. "How exactly alcohol causes damage to us is controversial," said Prof Ketan Patel, who led the work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. "This paper provides very strong evidence that an alcohol metabolite causes DNA damage [including] to the all-important stem cells that go on to make tissues." The study builds on previous work that had pinpointed a breakdown product of alcohol, called acetaldehyde, as a toxin that can damage the DNA within cells. However, these earlier studies had relied on extremely high concentrations of acetaldehyde and used cells in a dish rather than tracking its effects within the body.

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Overcoming an alcohol addiction is hard.

    Doing something hard requires compelling motivation.

    If you want to break the addiction, it isn't enough to be willing to try this or that. You have to be committed to the benefits you will gain. You have to know what kind of person you want to be, why you want to be that person, how you will benefit from being that person, and how superior those benefits are to the benefits you now get from drinking.

    Your desire to be free must be authentic. It must be real to you, not just lip-service to some conventional wisdom about health. You have to want it. For real. A lot.

    Once that is true, then it's just a matter of applying the power of your brain to the task of achieving it, including tapping support resources such as recovery programs, etc. Be prepared for withdrawal and relapse, too.

  2. Re:Sensationalism headline strike again! by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just wrong.

    Alcoholic drinks were a way of dealing with bad water. The use of alcohol increased lifespans.

    That is was (in the case of beer, not wine) the boiling step in the preparation of the drink that provided the benefit is irrelevant. They didn't know that and never ran the experiment.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'