Alcohol and Cancer Link Better Understood

October 29, 2009

Sometimes it is difficult to understand how tiny steps in the forward progress of research actually help us towards the goal of eradicating cancer. The latest findings regarding the link between alcohol and cancer provide a good opportunity to explore the process. Researchers have identified a new way that alcohol promotes cancer cell growth; they have identified the process that happens on the level of a single cancer cell. So the question then becomes: why does this matter to a cancer survivor or someone interested in the prevention of cancer.

This is going to be a very simple explanation, and the goal is to describe the importance of small steps in the research process. Researchers suspected that alcohol consumption plays a role in the growth of cancer. To establish that as a possibility, researchers looked at a large population of people, some who were drinkers and some who were not. In fact, they looked the entire spectrum of drinkers, everything from a non-drinker to a heavy almost constant drinker. The researchers followed thousands of people in each of these categories over a long period of time to see who developed cancer, and then they compared the rate cancer in each alcohol consumption group to the other groups. The results basically explained that it seemed that alcohol consumption increased one's risk of developing cancer. So that seems straightforward right?

But then researchers have to ask: is it really the alcohol that is increasing the risk, or is it something else that we are not see that is common to alcohol consumers? Is it actually the act of drinking the alcohol that increases the risk (in which case we could stop drinking and the problem would be solved), or is it something that happens in the body after the alcohol is consumed (in which case we could still drink and just do something to modify what happens later). And this is where the latest research finding comes into play. Researchers performed biological studies to understand the mechanism or the pathway by which alcohol helps cancer cells grow.

So why is this important?

1) Now we know that alcohol does increase risk of cancer (and it is not something else common to alcohol drinkers that researchers couldn't see). We can more confidently say: avoid drinking too much alcohol.

2) Now we know one way alcohol helps a cancer cell grow, and this might help us understand how other risk factors like fat cells might do the same thing.

Why is this particular information important to cancer survivors?

A big part of survivorship is the prevention of second or recurring cancers. One of the most important risk factors for a cancer diagnosis is having already been diagnosed with another cancer, so keeping on top of prevention is one of the most important things a survivor can do.

Link to Alcohol Pathway Study