Gastric cancer High risk due to alcohol

A Korean study shows that alcohol promotes the development of gastric cancer. Affected are primarily people who are not infected with Helicobacter pylori. The scientists studied 18,863 Koreans, including 403 gastric carcinoma patients, on alcohol consumption and gastric cancer. An increased gastric cancer rate only occurred in study participants without the gastric germ.

Alcohol can increase the stomach cancer risk. Image: Olesia Bilkei - fotolia

For 949 individuals, including 266 for gastric cancer, H. pylori status data were available. Only those participants who did not have H. pylori-specific IgG antibodies increased their gastric cancer risk as a result of heavy alcohol consumption: the risk was around 3.5 times a week for at least seven alcoholic drinks and around 3.3 for binge drinking. sometimes as high as with alcohol abstinence.

Patients with IgG antibodies who were (at some point) infected with H. pylori showed no correlation between drinking behavior and cancer rate. Obviously, there is an association between the two risk factors that mitigates their overall carcinogenic effects.

The study authors suggest that antimicrobial effects of alcohol on the stomach germ are responsible for it. The study can be found here. (Pm)