Genetic Variation and Cancer Risk
A study found that "the ADH1C*1 allele and genotype ADH1C*1/1 were significantly more frequent in patients with alcohol-related cancers…" A European study has found two gene variants which offer "significant" protection against mouth and throat cancers. Alcohol is a known porphyrinogenic chemical. Several European studies have linked the inherited hepatic porphyrias with a predisposition to hepatocellular carcinoma. Typical risk factors for HCC need not be present with the acute hepatic porphyrias, specifically acute intermittent porphyria, variegate porphyria and hereditary coproporphyria. Porphyria cutanea tarda is also associated with HCC, but with typical risk factors including evidence of hepatotropic viruses, hemochromatosis and alcoholic cirrhosis. Tyrosinemia Type I, an inherited disorder in tyrosine metabolism impacting the second enzyme in the heme metabolic pathway is associated with a high risk of developing HCC in younger populations, including children.
Read more about this topic: Alcohol And Cancer
Famous quotes containing the words genetic, cancer and/or risk:
“We cannot think of a legitimate argument why ... whites and blacks need be affected by the knowledge that an aggregate difference in measured intelligence is genetic instead of environmental.... Given a chance, each clan ... will encounter the world with confidence in its own worth and, most importantly, will be unconcerned about comparing its accomplishments line-by-line with those of any other clan. This is wise ethnocentricism.”
—Richard Herrnstein (19301994)
“Im beginning to believe that Killer Illiteracy ought to rank near heart disease and cancer as one of the leading causes of death among Americans. What you dont know can indeed hurt you, and so those who can neither read nor write lead miserable lives, like Richard Wrights character, Bigger Thomas, born dead with no past or future.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Nature, we are starting to realize, is every bit as important as nurture. Genetic influences, brain chemistry, and neurological development contribute strongly to who we are as children and what we become as adults. For example, tendencies to excessive worrying or timidity, leadership qualities, risk taking, obedience to authority, all appear to have a constitutional aspect.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)