Study finds excessive drinking may cause cancer
2/17/2006 Ithaca, NY Karin Fleming The Ithacan Online (www.ithaca.edu/ithacan) Decades after Joe Jackson’s hit song “Cancer,” his statement that everything causes cancer continues to be reinforced. The latest substance under attack is one that 23 percent of college students consume in excess — alcohol. A CNN study released Feb. 3 found a link between certain types of cancer and the intake of alcohol — the more alcohol consumed, the higher the risk for cancer. The 23 percent of students who drink excessively, as defined by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, drink four drinks a night if they’re women and five if they’re men, and they drink three or more times in two weeks. This intake and frequency can be linked to cancers of the mouth, larynx, liver, breast, lung and pancreas. “Cancer runs in my family, so hearing that drinking can increase the already high susceptibility I have for it is terrifying,” said junior Monica Marcenko. Drinking alcohol causes damage to the cells of the upper- respiratory tract, which could initiate cancer after prolonged periods of abuse, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research. Also, those who drink alcohol are six times more likely to develop oral cancer than those who abstain, and about 75 percent of oral cancer patients drank alcohol in excess. Women are also more prone to developing cancer than men, because of the different compositions of their bodies. Because women generally have more fat and less muscle tissue than men, alcohol — [...]