Drinking excessive alcohol is a major risk factor for developing head and neck cancer. So how come red wine, an alcoholic beverage, seems to offer some protection against cancer?
This contradiction is because red wine and grape skin contains a chemical called resveratrol. Resveratrol appears to kill cells that have been damaged by alcohol before they can become cancerous.
When you drink alcohol, your body first converts it to a chemical called acetyl aldehyde. Your body then converts this chemical to acetic acid, which the body then excretes. But acetyl aldehyde is a carcinogen. While it is in your body, it causes DNA in your cells to form cross-links, which are mistakes in the genetic code.
Normally, your cells can repair these cross links in your DNA, but too much alcohol leads to too much acetyl aldehyde that can overwhelm this repair system, increasing the risk of developing cancer, especially head and neck cancer. The damaged cells may turn cancerous.
But research has shown that although drinking alcohol is a risk factor for cancer, the risk is lowest in people who drink red wine rather than hard alcohol. This is because the resveratrol in red wine appears to kill the cells that are most damaged by the wine, preventing them from developing into cancer.
Resveratrol cannot undo all the cellular damage that too much alcohol can create, but it appears to decrease the probability that drinking alcohol will cause cancer.
Head and neck cancer is difficult to treat and even when it goes into remission, it carries a high risk of re-occurring. This makes it a relatively dangerous form of cancer.
This finding comes from research done at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, CO, by Robert Sclafani, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics there. The research was reported at ScienceDaily.com