Alcohol and DNA. How alcohol can harm DNA

In our body, alcohol is first converted to acetaldehyde, and then to acetic acid, which, unlike acetaldehyde, is completely harmless and which serves as a source of energy in further metabolic processes. As for acetaldehyde, it not only makes us suffer a hangover - it is, as researchers from Cambridge found out, also damages DNA. Experiments with blood stem cells have shown that acetaldehyde breaks both DNA chains; as stated in an article in Nature, if there are many such breaks, the cells do not have time to patch them, and as a result, uncorrected mutations appear in the genome, which dividing cells pass to their descendants.

Acetaldehyde into acetic acid converts the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase 2. In mice with a damaged aldehyde dehydrogenase gene, mutations in DNA occurred four times more often than in mice with a normal enzyme. Mutations, as is well known, often lead to cancer. Moreover, probably, because of the peculiarities in the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene, residents of Southeast Asia suffer from esophageal cancer so often: their enzyme does not work well, so too much acetaldehyde accumulates in the cells, which creates oncogenic mutations. On the other hand, some oncological diseases do often occur with the abuse of alcohol. However, nevertheless, the results are to be checked not only on blood stem cells, but also on other cells, and preferably taken from a person.