Red Wine May Cut Risk of Colorectal Cancer

[MeDieViL]

MONDAY, Oct. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Drinking more than three glasses of red wine a week reduced the incidence of abnormal growths and cancers of the intestinal tract by two-thirds, a new study found.
ADVERTISEMENT

White wine did not have the same protective effect, said study author Dr. Joseph C. Anderson, an assistant professor of medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

"I generally advise against drinking, but if you're going to drink, drink red wine," Anderson said.

The findings were expected to be presented Monday at the American College of Gastroenterology's annual meeting, in Las Vegas.

Anderson's study included 1,741 people seen in his office -- 245 red wine drinkers, 115 white wine drinkers, and 1,381 wine abstainers. Of the red wine drinkers, 176 had three or more glasses a week, as did 68 of the white wine drinkers.

The incidence of colorectal neoplasia -- cancers and polyps that can become cancerous -- was 9.9 percent in the abstainers, 8.8 percent in the three-glass-or-more white wine drinkers, and 3.4 percent in the three-glass-or more red wine drinkers, a 68 percent reduction for that group, Anderson reported.

His is the latest in a series of studies that have found red wine consumption associated with a reduced risk of various forms of cancer -- leukemia, breast and prostate among them -- in animal studies or real life. Like many of the other researchers, Anderson attributes the beneficial effect to the compound resveratrol, which is found under the skin of grapes.

Resveratrol content is higher in red than white wine because the grape skins are removed early in the fermentation process for white wines, Anderson said. The skins stay on longer when red wine is made, allowing resveratrol to enter the wine.

But that might not be the whole story, said Gopi Paliyath, a plant agriculture professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, who has done studies that found a protective effect from red wine against breast cancer.

Resveratrol is a member of the chemical family called polyphenols, many of which are found in red wine, Paliyath said. "It may be a combined action, not only one particular component doing something," he said.

And a study done by one of his students added a potentially different element to the mix -- chemicals found in the oak barrels in which wine is made. They may leak out of the oak into the wine and act in conjunction with the polyphenols, he said.

Whatever the cause of the protective effect, Anderson said he advises people against taking up the wine habit for health reasons.

"People are better off going out exercising than hoping that a glass of wine will help them," he said. "My bias is more toward other things, like running or biking."

But, Anderson noted, his observation is that "wine drinkers are more likely to do those things."

[Big'r]

Alcohol lijkt toch echt complete bagger voor kanker!

A meta-analysis of alcoholic beverage consumption in relation to risk of colorectal cancer.
Quantitative methods were used to review epidemiologic data relating consumption of alcoholic beverages to risk of colorectal cancer. The data (27 studies) supported the presence of a weak association. For consumption of two alcoholic beverages daily, on average the relative risk of colorectal cancer was 1.10 (95% confidence interval 1.05-1.14). Other findings were: (1) the association did not vary according to gender or site within the large bowel; (2) results from follow-up studies (relative risk 1.32, 95% confidence interval 1.16-1.51) suggested a stronger relationship than those from case-control studies (relative risk 1.07, 95% confidence interval 1.02-1.12); and (3) the evidence supporting beverage specificity was not conclusive, although the results were consistent with a stronger association with consumption of beer (relative risk 1.26, 95% confidence interval 1.13-1.41) than with consumption of wine (relative risk 1.11, 95% confidence interval 0.91-1.36) or liquor (relative risk 1.13, 95% confidence interval 0.99-1.29). Because the magnitude of the association between alcohol consumption and risk of colorectal cancer was small, the findings regarding a causal role of alcohol were inconclusive.

Exploring the dose-response relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of several alcohol-related conditions: a meta-analysis.
OBJECTIVE: To compare the strength of the evidence provided by the epidemiological literature on the association between alcohol consumption and the risk of six cancers (oral cavity, oesophagus, colorectum, liver, larynx, breast), hypertension, cerebrovascular diseases, gastric and duodenal ulcer, liver cirrhosis and other chronic liver diseases, pancreatitis and injures and adverse effects. METHODS: A search of the epidemiological literature from 1966 to 1998 was performed by several bibliographic databases. Meta-regression models were fitted considering fixed and random models and linear and non-linear effects of alcohol intake on the risk of each condition. The effects of some characteristics of the studies including an index of their quality were considered as putative sources of heterogeneity of the estimates. Publication bias was also investigated by asymmetry of funnel plots. RESULTS: Of the 397 initially reviewed studies, 200 were selected for meta-analysis. Since qualitative characteristics of the studies were often significant sources of heterogeneity among them, the estimates of the pooled dose-response slopes were based only on the 123 studies with higher quality score and/or reporting adjusted estimates of relative risks. Higher alcohol-related risks were found for liver cirrhosis, neoplasms of the upper respiratory and digestive tracts, haemorrhagic stroke and injuries and adverse effects. Weaker but significant associations were found for colorectum, liver and breast cancers, essential hypertension and chronic pancreatitis. For all these conditions, low intakes, corresponding to daily consumption of two drinks or two glasses of wine (25 g/day), have shown significant risks. Ischaemic stroke and gastric and duodenal ulcer seem independent of alcohol intake. The area in which the study was performed, the study's design and the outcome variable differently affected the slopes. CONCLUSIONS: The small number of sufficiently reliable studies, the strong indications of heterogeneity across them and the suspicion of publication bias suggest that there is a great need for well-conducted epidemiological studies performed in several countries, to examine the dose-response relationship between alcohol intake and the risk of several alcohol-related conditions, as well as the role of drinking pattern in determining the risk.

Alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer: a meta-analysis.
Alcohol consumption has been linked to an increased risk for various types of cancer. A combined analysis of more than 200 studies assessing the link between alcohol and various types of cancer (i.e., a meta-analysis) sought to investigate this association in more detail. This meta-analysis found that alcohol most strongly increased the risks for cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, and larynx. Statistically significant increases in risk also existed for cancers of the stomach, colon, rectum, liver, female breast, and ovaries. Several mechanisms have been postulated through which alcohol may contribute to an increased risk of cancer. Concurrent tobacco use, which is common among drinkers, enhances alcohol's effects on the risk for cancers of the upper digestive and respiratory tract. The analysis did not identify a threshold level of alcohol consumption below which no increased risk for cancer was evident.

[MeDieViL]

tja, dat is natuurlijk weer het nadeel
ik probeer het alleszins te beperken