Daily Express, 09 May 2008. Page 17

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Cancer risk of just two glasses of wine a day

By David Pilditch
By Martin Evans

JUST two glasses of wine a day can increase the risk of cancer by up to 75 per cent, scientists warned yesterday.

Research previously showed that moderate amounts of red wine may havehealth benefits, including helping to prevent heart disease and strokes.

But the new study says two units of alcohol a day could increase the chance of mouth cancer by 75 per cent.

And breast cancer, which kills around 12,400 women in bingedrinking Britain each year, is 22 per cent more likely.

Men who drink four units a day increase the risk of developing bowel cancer by 64 per cent.

The 194-page Australian report concluded that there was no safe levelof alcohol consumption and recommended that drinking should be kept toa minimum “if at all”.

The study by the Cancer ADOPTING a caveman’s diet can help you live longer, according to new research.

Just three weeks eating nothing but the basic Stone Age diet ofberries, vegetables and lean meat significantly lowers the chance ofsuffering a heart attack or stroke.

Whether cave cuisine resulted in prehistoric ladies looking quite likeRaquel Welch, left, in her 1966 movie One Million Years BC is open toquestion.

But in a major new study scientists working with nutritionistsdiscovered that eating like our ancestors also helps lower bloodpressure, reduces the risk of diabetes, thins the blood and leads to weight loss.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden tested the benefitsof a Stone Age diet on volunteers who ate nothing but caveman rationsfor 21 days.

Their usual diet, which was high in processed foods, dairy products,sugar and salt, was replaced with one based on foods typically eaten byhunter-gatherer communities tens of Institute, New South Wales,reinforced fears that increased alcohol consumption was leading to hugehealth problems in modern society.

The institute’s chief executive, Professor Jim Bishop, said thatalthough there was an awareness about the dangers of smoking, the samewas not true for drinking, even though “alcohol is a well-establishedcarcinogen and is known to increase the risk of several cancers”.

Researchers found drinking two small glasses a of wine a day increasethe risk of getting cancer of the oesophagus by 50 per cent and cancerof the larynx by 40 per cent.

At high levels of drinking, classed as eight measures per day, the riskof cancer in the mouth or throat was “four to six times that of anondrinker”.

Scientists have found alcohol can cause cancer in different ways and not all of them are fully understood.

One mechanism is through the chemical acetaldehyde, which is a toxicby-product of alcohol when it is processed by the body. It can lead tothe development of tumours and interfere with cell DNA.

Alcohol probably causes breast cancer by changing levels of the hormone oestrogen.

Professor Bishop said two standard measures a day could boost the odds of some common cancers developing by 10 to 20 per cent.

He added: “We don’t want a general scare, but the fact is that alcoholconsumption on a regular basis, even at moderate levels, can increasethe risk.”

The professor accepted that there was some evidence that small amountsof alcohol could do some good, in helping maintain a healthy heart forexample.

But he added: “Clearly for cardiac disease it may be that red wine ishelpful, but for cancer we cannot see any benefit at all from alcohol.”

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Daily Express
09 May 2008