Saturday, January 24, 2009

HEAVY DRINKERS RUN GREATER RISK OF MOUTH CANCER THAN SMOKERS

NEW YORK (UPI)

Heavy whiskey, beer and wine drinkers may run a greater risk of mouth cancer than two-pack-a-day cigerette smokers, the American Cancer Society Journal reports.

And heavy drinkers who stick to beer or wine alone may run a greater risk than those who drink equivalent amounts of whiskey, the Journal report by Dr. Arthur Mashberg and Lawrence Garfinkel says.

Mashberg is chief of oral and maxillo-facial surgery at Veterans Administration Medical Centre in East Orange, N.J., and clinical professor of surgery at New Jersey Medical School, Newark, N.J. Garfinkel is the ACS vice president for epidemiology and statistics.

Setting up a "whiskey equivalent" system - one ounce of whiskey equals four ounces of wine or 12 ounces of beer - the report said:

Those who drank less than 6 whisky equivalents a day had an oral cancer risk 3.3 times greater than those who did not drink.

Those who drank between 6 and 9 increased their risk to 15.2.

For those drinking 10 or more whiskey equivalents, the risked dropped to 10.6. This apparent drop in risk for the heaviest drinkers was attributed to the fact that this group consisted primarily of whiskey drinkers, whereas the 6 to 9 whiskey equivalent group was heavily weighted with drinkers who favored beer and wine

Those smoking 10 to 19 cigarettes daily incurred a 3.2 times greater risk of oral cancer than those who did not smoke.

Those who smoked 40 or more were 5 times more at risk.

For someone who smokes and drinks, doubling the alcohol consumption leads to a much great risk of oral cancer than doubling the cigarette consumption.

DON SAYS: Wow! Am I ever glad I quit drinking and smoking 40 years ago! Now that I am here at 75 years of age, still going, and apparently in good enough physical shape to last a few years more, I surely would not have reach the here and now - I smoked a pack a day, and drank regularly both at the same time.

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