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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – NEW YORK – Women who consume large amounts of alcoholic beverages and have low consumption of folates have three-times greater risk of developing mouth cancers than women who also drink a lot but have high folate intake, according to research by Columbia University Medical Center and Harvard published in the October issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.
While the number of women diagnosed with oral and pharyngeal cancers is expected to surpass the number of women affected with cervical cancer, the authors said, very little information currently exists about oral and pharyngeal cancer in women because most studies have focused on males.
To provide clues about the etiology of oral and pharyngeal cancer specifically among women, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and the Harvard School of Public Health studied a group of more than 87,000 female nurses that have been followed since 1976. The authors found that heavy tobacco and alcohol use are the main risk factors for developing head and neck cancer in women.
While this finding was expected because it has been described previously among men, the authors noted that women who drank large quantities of alcohol did not have as high a risk if their folate consumption levels were also high (>350 ìg/day). In contrast, women with high alcohol consumption who did not consume enough folate had a more than three-fold increases in risk (as compared with non-drinkers at the same folate levels).
Cancer epidemiologist Athanasios Zavras, who is the article’s corresponding author and the head of the Division of Oral Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Columbia University Medical Center / Columbia University College of Dental Medicine, explains that folate depletion has been associated with chromosomal breaks and serious disruptions in DNA repair. It is also known that alcohol drinking leads to decreased folate metabolism, and increased acetaldehyde (carcinogen) production. The more a woman drinks the more acetaldehyde is created in the epithelial tissues, leading to reductions of available folate. Other co-authors in this NIH-sponsored study include Dr. Jayapriyaa Shanmugam, Dr. Bernard Rosner and Dr. Edward Giovannucci, all of Harvard.
Folates are a form of Vitamin B, essential to numerous bodily functions such the synthesis and repair of DNA and the prevention of cancer. In pregnant women, one consequence of not consuming enough folate is the development of neural tube defects in embryos. Common sources of folates include leafy vegetables such as spinach, asparagus and turnip greens.
Not only do oral and pharyngeal cancers lead to increased morbidity, but these cancers often lead to rapid and dramatic drops in the patient’s quality of life, with people often losing their tongues, lips, or even their entire jaws, Dr. Zavras says. These cancers also have a range of psycho-social consequences, affecting a person’s ability to smile, enjoy food, and communicate with others.
Every year, more than 36,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with oral and pharyngeal cancer and close to 8,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heavy smoking and heavy alcohol drinking are the main risk factors, but oral sex and HPV infections have also been linked with the disease. Approximately one-third of the newly diagnosed patients are women.
To understand carcinogenesis at the molecular level and to explore how our genes interface with our lifestyle, Dr. Zavras was recently awarded an NIH grant to conduct a pilot genome-wide association study (GWAS) of oral cancer. According to Dr. Zavras, “the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) support will allow us for the first time to search across the whole genome, studying the effects of millions of genotypes and copy number variants in an effort to discover markers of susceptibility with clinical and predictive utility.”
For more information, please visit: http://dental.columbia.edu/
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