Chug-A-Lug

This one goes out to all of those “fun-loving” college kids out there.  A study going on in Europe suggests that heavy beer drinking, coupled with a gene mutation involved in the metabolism of alcohol, may face a higher risk in the development of stomach cancer.  The study suggests that having the genetic variant and drinking about three 12-ounce cans or more of beer per day markedly raised the risk of “non-cardia gastric cancer”.  The variant being looked at is the "rs1230025 variant", which is located among a group of three genes already linked to alcohol digestion.  “All we can currently say is that the genetic variant is associated with increased risk, heavy drinking is associated with increased risk, and when the two are together, the risk is even worse,” said Eric Duell, a senior epidemiologist at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain, and lead author of the study.   Understandably, either of these factors on their own have the ability to raise one’s risk for developing stomach cancer, but together that risk is much increased.  The variant is carried by about twenty percent of the European population, so it is not something rare.  Although never fear, this genetic issue seems to apply more towards northern Europeans than it does to Americans.   Nevertheless, it is still an interesting factor to be observed and should be further looked into.

Coming from someone who is looking at some form of gastric cancer from both sides of the family, this was interesting, but not very concerning.  Three beers every night seems like quite a lot, but I don’t doubt that there are people out there who drink that much or more every evening.   If you’re drinking that much or more every night I would be more concerned about your liver than your stomach.