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CC BY 4.0 · Glob Med Genet 2020; 07(03): 080-086
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1721814
Review Article

Role of Chronic Alcoholism Causing Cancer in Omnivores and Vegetarians through Epigenetic Modifications

Syed Aaquil Hasan Syed Javid Hasan
1   Department of Acute Medicine, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
,
Raisa Arifanie O'Zelian Pawirotaroeno
2   Department of Emergency, Mungra Medical Center, Nickerie, Suriname
,
Syed Abrar Hasan Syed Javid Hasan
3   Department of Oncology, VS Hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
,
Elene Abzianidze
4   Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Tbilisi State Medical University, Tbilisi, Georgia
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Abstract

One of the significant consequences of alcohol consumption is cancer formation via several contributing factors such as action of alcohol metabolites, vitamin deficiencies, and oxidative stress. All these factors have been shown to cause epigenetic modifications via DNA hypomethylation, thus forming a basis for cancer development. Several published reviews and studies were systematically reviewed. Omnivores and vegetarians differ in terms of nutritional intake and deficiencies. As folate deficiency was found to be common among the omnivores, chronic alcoholism could possibly cause damage and eventually cancer in an omnivorous individual via DNA hypomethylation due to folate deficiency. Furthermore, as niacin was found to be deficient among vegetarians, damage in vegetarian chronic alcoholics could be due to increased NADH/NAD+ ratio, thus slowing alcohol metabolism in liver leading to increased alcohol and acetaldehyde which inhibit methyltransferase enzymes, eventually leading to DNA hypomethylation. Hence correcting the concerned deficiency and supplementation with S-adenosyl methionine could prove to be protective in chronic alcohol use.

Keywords

chronic alcohol use - cancer epigenetic mechanisms - dietary deficiencies - epigenetic modifications - omnivores and vegetarians


Publication History

Article published online:
29 December 2020

© 2020. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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