Gimme a Drink--But Hold the Acetaldehyde

Another look at alcohol and cancer.

If beverage alcohol were a new drug, it would face an uphill battle to make it through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pipeline. Why? Because the amount of acetaldehyde in alcoholic drinks—combined with acetaldehyde from other sources—might be too carcinogenic to pass muster under existing regulations.

When drinkers drink, the first thing that happens is that enzymes convert the alcohol into acetaldehyde. Previous research has shown that this common organic chemical is implicated in certain cancers, particularly cancers of the digestive tract. Studies at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) showed that the concentration of acetaldehyde measured in human saliva during drinking episodes was sufficient to produce the kind of damage to DNA that can result in cancer.

In a study published recently in the journal Addiction, researchers from Canada and Germany showed that heavy drinkers ingest enough acetaldehyde to raise their lifetime cancer risk to as high as 1 in 1,000. The study concludes: “The life-time cancer risks from acetaldehyde from alcoholic beverages greatly exceed the usual limits for cancer risks from the environment.”

The real problem comes when alcohol is used in combination with acetaldehyde from other sources, such as tobacco, food flavorings, pesticides, and perfume. Heavy drinkers “face a magnitude of risk requiring intervention.” According to Dr. Jurgen Rehm at Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), quoted in Science Daily: “Most risk assessments to date were based on one source of exposure only. This has led to a negligence of the overall risk.”

According to the Science Daily article, “Alone, the risks associated with surpassing limits of acetaldehyde from the air may not yet be alarming, but for heavy drinkers and smokers, it adds to the acetaldehyde levels already received from these sources. This overall risk then surpasses established safety limits.” To make matters worse, acetaldehyde is a common substance in tobacco smoke—and alcoholics are often heavy cigarette smokers.

A Finnish drug company is currently conducting clinical trials of a time-release capsule of the amino acid cysteine, which can bind with acetaldehyde and render it inactive.

In a related development, a study in PLoS Medicine appeared to demonstrate that people who suffer from the so-called alcohol flush reaction—primarily Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans—are at increased risk for throat cancer. The culprit? An excess of acetaldehyde.

Photo Credit: National Institute of Standards and Technology

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Drug Addicts Punished in New York Prisons

Drug offenders get “the box” instead of treatment.

The common practice of placing drug addicts in “disciplinary segregation” for drug use violations in New York state prisons has drawn fire from Human Rights Watch. The international human rights group issued a report condemning the practice of placing addicts in “the box” and denying them treatment for their drug dependence, calling it “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.”

In the report, entitled “Barred from Treatment: Punishment of Drug Users in New York State Prisons,” Human Rights Watch notes that even addicts who are allowed to seek treatment face major delays “because treatment programs are filled to capacity.” New York State Assemblyman Jeff Aubry, chair of the State Committee on Corrections, told the investigators: “Denying treatment to inmates who suffer from a drug dependency is illogical and counterproductive to the goal of rehabilitation.”

Some of the findings in the report are shocking: “Despite overwhelming evidence that medication-assisted therapy is the most effective treatment for opiate addiction, the majority of New York State prisoners dependent on heroin or other opiates have no access to methadone or buprenorphine.” Furthermore, the state’s Department of Correctional Services “has conducted few evaluations of its own treatment programs.” Prison officials have estimated that as many as eight out of ten inmates have substance abuse problems. A National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) study earlier this year, covered in a previous post, estimated that only one-fifth of the nation’s inmates needing formal treatment are able to get it.

The report comes just as New York legislators have agreed to revamp the so-called Rockefeller drug laws, which are among the strictest in the nation. “Reforming the Rockefeller drug laws to prevent drug users from being sentenced to long prison sentences is critically important, said Megan McLemore, a researcher with Human Rights Watch. “But timely and effective programs must be available to serve the inmates still in prison.” McLemore said in a press release that “discipline should be proportionate to the offense, and should never prevent prisoners from getting the treatment they need.”

As a prisoner at Attica told Human Rights Watch, “Here is a notice telling me ‘it could be a long time’ until I get into treatment again. There’s plenty of room for me in the box, but not in a program.”

Photo Credit: ACS blog

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