If you have cancer, new research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center is sobering. Drinking alcohol spurred the growth of existing cancer in mice.
In the study, mice were given either water or water and alcohol for a month; in week two, researchers injected them with melanoma. Mice that drank the human equivalent of two to four alcoholic drinks a day for a month had tumors twice as large as those in the water-only mice.
Researchers explain that the alcohol spurred development of new blood vessels needed to feed cancer--a process that's known as angiogenesis.
"Our message is simple," researcher Jian-Wei Gu told Science News. For people with genetic signs of vulnerability to any kind of cancer, "No drinking."
Copyright 2004 Jean Carper. Printed first in USA Weekend. All rights reserved.
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