The key word here is "possible". There are many speculations in the literature about possible mechanisms for ethanol as a carcinogen that are consistent with biological knowledge. The question is whether there are any experimental demonstrations of the _magnitude_ of these effects in vivo; even in animal models?
On Feb 27, 2009, at 7:25 AM, Rick Froman wrote: > Since the assumption of this thread seems to be that all research > on the link between alcohol and cancer is correlational and > epidemiological, I thought I would do a Google Scholar search on > alcohol and cancer and see what is out there. What was out there > was approximately 814,000 hits. Of course these could all be > correlational studies (and many are probably duplicates) so I > clicked on the second one in the list and found an interesting > article on possible biological mechanisms (http:// > www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2686698). I also found a link to a > review of studies of alcohol and cancer as early as 1986 (http:// > www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3035901). The last line of the abstract > was, “Animal models are needed in which effects of ethanol on > carcinogenesis can be consistently demonstrated and which can then > be used to examine mechanisms”. I thought it unlikely that no > experimental work had ensued in the intervening years. Indeed, a > 2004 review article is available full text on the web at: http:// > alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/39/3/155 that includes > sections on Animal Models and Possible Biological Mechanisms. The > reference list of the article has links to many related articles > available in full-text. Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato paul.bran...@mnsu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
