How does drinking alcohol increase my cancer risk?

How does drinking alcohol increase my cancer risk?

Christian Cable, Dr. Ryan Osborne & Dr. Noam Z. Drazin (Cancer Experts) gives expert video advice on: What increases my risks of getting cancer?; How does drinking alcohol increase my cancer risk?; How does smoking increase my cancer risk? and more...

Alcohol can increase your risk of getting cancer, because it is an irritant. Sometimes people can feel when they drink, either a beer or a hard alcoholic beverage that it burns when it goes down. And alcohol does irritate the epithelium. The lining in the mouth, the throat and even the stomach. And those are the most common cancers that are increased by alcohol. So that's one way, is chronic irritation of the mouth, the throat, and the stomach. Another way that alcohol can contribute is if it causes liver disease. Alcohol is one of the top causes of cirrhosis in this country. So people who have had heavy alcohol intake for about twenty years have a high incidence of cirrhosis. And people with cirrhosis are at a very high rate of risk for liver cancer. Those are the two main ways which alcohol can contribute.