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How alcohol damages the intestines and can cause tumors

2023-08-29 21:00:00, Shëndeti CNA

How alcohol damages the intestines and can cause tumors

Illustrative photo

Drinking alcohol, even in moderate amounts, can have harmful effects on health.

The more often you consume alcohol, the more health problems such as liver disease, pancreatitis, mental health disorders and certain cancers such as stomach and colorectal cancer can increase.

Researchers from the National Institute of Health are shedding more light on how alcohol can cause damage to other areas of the gastrointestinal system, mainly the intestines.

How does alcohol affect the gut?

When you drink alcohol, it immediately begins to affect your gastrointestinal system as it travels down your esophagus into your stomach.

In the stomach, alcohol begins to be absorbed into your bloodstream. If you don't have much food in your stomach, the remaining alcohol quickly passes into the intestines, where it continues to be drawn into the bloodstream.

Once alcohol enters the bloodstream, it is carried to all areas and organs of the body.

The amount of alcohol in a person's bloodstream is known as the blood alcohol concentration.

How alcohol damages the intestines and can cause tumors

The body also immediately begins to metabolize alcohol as soon as it enters the body. The ethanol in alcohol is broken down by the liver into a carcinogenic compound called acetaldehyde.

Although acetaldehyde eventually breaks down to acetate, and after water and carbon dioxide leave the body, it can still have harmful effects.

"This is what makes alcohol an important risk factor for gastrointestinal disease," said Dr. Luca Maccionitrusted Source, a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Liver Disease and Laboratory of Physiological Studies at the National Institutes of Health and the author of this study.

"The gastrointestinal tract is in contact with the largest amount of ethanol and its metabolites during alcohol consumption. "Extremely high concentrations of ethanol and its metabolites significantly increase the risk of gastrointestinal diseases and tumors," he told Medical News Today .

What is alcohol-related bowel disease?

Alcohol-related bowel disease is a spectrum of bowel dysfunctions due to excessive alcohol consumption.

“To date, we lack a diagnostic definition of alcohol-related bowel disease, as well as a detailed molecular characterization of alcohol-related bowel disease, which may precede digestive tract tumors. Therefore, future studies are needed to better understand the pathogenesis of alcohol-related bowel disease and to identify therapeutic targets to treat and/or ameliorate this disease," said Maccioni.

Increased risk of stomach and colorectal cancer

Previous research shows that drinking alcohol is associated with an increased probability of developing stomach and colorectal cancer.

Dr. Rudolph Bedford, a gastroenterologist at the Providence Saint John Health Center in California, who was not involved in this research, said that the increased risk has to do with the carcinogens released by alcohol during its consumption.

How alcohol damages the intestines and can cause tumors

"These carcinogens can affect cells in the stomach or colon and other gastrointestinal organs such as the pancreas and esophagus," he said.

Effect of alcohol on intestinal bacteria

Dr. Scott Friedman, dean for therapeutic discovery, professor of medicine and pharmacological sciences and chief of the Division of Liver Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, who was not involved in the study, talked about the effect on gut bacteria .

Friedman confirmed that alcohol is a possible tumor promoter.

"We are now intensely focused on the contribution of the microbiome, or the collection of bacteria in the human gut, because we are beginning to appreciate that not only are they a rich source of metabolites that can affect health, but they can interact with organs in the body. ", he said.

"For example, the microbiome can generate microorganisms in some patients that invade the liver and can cause liver damage," Friedman added./ CNA