Source: www.dentistry.co.uk
Author: staff

A mouth cancer expert is calling for an abstinence from alcohol to stem the rise in mouth cancer in the UK. New figures suggest that booze is largely to blame for an ‘alarming’ rise in the rate of oral cancers among men and women in their forties.

The figures, released by Cancer Research UK, show that since the mid-1990s, rates of oral cancers have gone up by 28% for men in their forties and 24% for women. Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1950s and is the most likely culprit alongside smoking, says Cancer Research UK.

Now Dr Vinod Joshi, founder of the Mouth Cancer Foundation is suggesting people should ‘avoid drinking alcohol altogether’.

The Department of Health’s current advice is that men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol per day, and women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units of alcohol per day.

He says: ‘In view of the latest reports from Cancer Research UK, the current alcohol guidelines that we’ve got are actually very high.

‘To reduce the risk of mouth cancer risk, the Mouth Cancer Foundation recommends that people should limit or avoid drinking alcohol altogether.’

For men, the Mouth Cancer Foundation recommends no more than occasional drinking of two standard drinks a day and for women no more than one standard drink a day.

Experts suggest that increased alcohol consumption is to blame as they say cancers caused by smoking often take 30 years to develop, and smoking rates have gone down while drinking has gone up.

Hazel Nunn, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, says: ‘These latest figures are really alarming. Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1950s and the trend we are now seeing is likely to be linked to Britain’s continually rising drinking levels.

‘It’s possible that HPV and diet are also playing a role, and the evidence – particularly for the role of HPV – is growing.’

Each year in the UK, around 1,800 people die from the disease and there are 5,000 newly diagnosed cases per year.

Other risk factors that may be involved include a diet low in fruit and vegetables, and the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), which also causes cervical cancer.