Researchers at the Cambridge Molecular Biology Laboratory, led by Professor Ketan Patel, who published the publication in the journal Nature, used mice to show that drinking alcohol leads to permanent genetic damage.
The damage is mainly caused by acetaldehyde , a chemical produced during alcohol treatment by the body. This substance was found to be able to break down and distort DNA molecules within the blood stem cells. This leads to chromosome rearrangement and to permanent modification of the DNA sequences in the stem cells.
In turn, stem cell damage can lead to cancer. The new study helps to understand why alcohol increases the risk of seven types of cancer: mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, breast, liver and intestine.
"Some cancers develop because of DNA damage to stem cells. Although some injuries happen by chance, our findings suggest that drinking alcohol can increase the risk of such harm, "said Patel.
The study also shows that the body is trying to protect itself from alcohol damage by using a family of enzymes as the first line of defense, aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH) that break down harmful acetaldehyde. However, millions of people around the world, especially in South East Asia, do not have these protective enzymes in their bodies, with the consequence that alcohol consumption hides more risks for them.
In study animals, which did not have the enzyme ALDH2, four-fold damage to their cell DNA was observed with respect to the mice in which the enzyme existed and functioned normally.
The second line of defense of the body's cells against alcohol is the DNA repair systems . But these do not work equally effectively in all organizations, especially people with specific mutations.
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