The Link Between Cancer and Alcohol

Cancer and alcohol connive with each other to destroy and cause your cells to mutate. Damaged cell membranes are one of the dangers of too much drinking that most people don't realize. It's the case of to see is to believe. It's because the damage happens deep inside your cells and is unseen by the naked eye.

Too much alcohol also causes harmful long term effects to your important organs especially your liver and heart.

What liquor does is to trigger the cancerous cells inside your body to proliferate and become stronger.

So, how do cancer and alcohol help each other in allowing the existence of cancerous cells?

It starts with a substance called acetaldehyde that your body produces when alcohol is present. If you drink a lot, an unusually high concentration of acetaldehyde is one of the long term effects. Acetaldehyde is dangerous when it's always present inside you. It makes the road smoother for leading types of cancer and bumpy for their prevention.

If you have too much to drink in one night, you may still be exposed to acetaldehyde the following day. This is because a mere 50ml of liquor stays in your system for 2 hours.

Awareness of its negative long term effects is a big step on prevention of diseases that alcohol abuse leads to sooner or later.

Pros and Cons of Alcoholic Drinks

I always believe that everything has a good side including alcoholic beverages.

Are there pros to drinking alcohol?

According to findings from many studies, a small glass of wine can help protect your heart. Wine is good but not rum or vodka. And only in one tiny glass.

Anything in moderation can be good. However, many people don't believe in moderation so they abuse alcohol.

If I will weigh the pros and cons, too much alcohol has more negative long term effects. One of the cons is hormone-related cancers.

Negative Long Term Effects of Too Much Drinking

1. Breast Tumor

How does too much consumption of alcoholic drinks cause tumors to form in your breasts? What it does is to increase the level of estrogen in your body. Too much estrogen is a risk factor for breast tumors.

Related Article: Breast Cancer Facts

New reports indicate that even moderate consumption of wine or liquor increases the risk of tumor growth in the breasts. If you drink a lot and you have 1st degree relatives who have been diagnosed with the disease, your risk goes up further more.

What if you also smoke? You're making it a lot worse! That glass of brandy enhances the harmful long term effects of tobacco. Too much alcoholic drinks and tobacco lead to long term inflammation. Inflammation is known to be the real cause why you get sick. In fact, studies show a connection between IBC or inflammatory breast cancer and alcohol.

There is a significant rise in the number of young women diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and alcohol drinking is found to be a common habit among them.

Related Article: Inflammatory Breast Cancer Symptoms

The best prevention against IBC is to eat healthy and to quit smoking and drinking.

2. Colorectal Tumor

Colorectal tumor is another type where heavy drinking is implicated. Increased level of insulin in your body is one of its long term effects. Growth of polyps in the colon or rectum is one of the long term effects triggered by a higher insulin level.

Increased amount of insulin is also linked to other cancers in the cervix, pancreas and kidney.

3. Prostate Tumor

If you drink frequently and heavily and you're more than 40, what long term effects on your health are you facing?

That drink in your hand can increase the level of another hormone called testosterone. Too much testosterone is what causes prostate cancer cells to grow out of control. Those malignant cells depend largely on the testosterone hormone to thrive.

If you have family members who have been diagnosed with prostate tumor and you drink and smoke yourself, you can expect increased risk for the disease as one of the long term effects.

4. Pancreatic Tumor

Too much drinking or heavy intake of liquor is linked to the onset of:

• Type 2 diabetes
• Pancreatitis

Pancreatitis is the chronic inflammation of the pancreas. It increases your susceptibility to tumors in your pancreas. And there are recent findings that even if you only consume 2 alcoholic drinks a day, your risk for pancreatic cancer increases by 22%.

The negative long term effects of alcohol are regardless of whether it is a beer, wine or hard liquor.

Again, the most effective step on prevention is to quit drinking.

In case you already have cancer and alcohol is your favorite drink, the only choice you got is to stop and help yourself heal.

Related Pages You Might Like:

The Dangers of Alcohol | Negative Effects of Alcohol | Giving Up Alcohol

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