SUNDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER 2022
Quite a productive week but still always feeling like there just aren’t enough hours in a day. My mood has been pretty good overall but it plummeted yesterday and I had to dig deep not to let it take hold – a glass of red wine was sounding pretty good! I think it was partly due to the chill in the air that’s just not going away any more – autumn is definitely here and I will now be cold pretty much all the time from now on in. It’s a depressing thought.
MY WHY
I don’t want to get cancer. I know that, statistically, almost half of us will in our lifetimes and I know that good lifestyle choices don’t necessarily guarantee that a person will dodge the big C. I have known people who were seemingly fit and healthy yet died long before their time, in particular a lovely lady who died of lung cancer before she hit 50, having never smoked in her life. The dreaded disease seems to be so indiscriminate and unpredictable that, for the most part, I figure that there’s no point in worrying about it at all because, if it’s going to get you, it’s going to get you regardless of what barriers you try to put in its way. The fact that alcohol has been confirmed as a carcinogen by the WHO has been highlighted to me since I started questioning my drinking and the fact that even moderate drinking increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 15% is hard to ignore. This week, however, an article popped up on my phone that resonated really strongly with me. It was from the Sun newspaper, of all places, and the headline was “One of Britain’s favourite drinks increases the risk of SEVEN types of cancer”. Well, I pretty much knew that. It went on to explain that experts believe this is due to the fact that our bodies produce the harmful chemical, acetaldehyde, to help us process alcohol. That too, I had read before and was another of the alcohol horror stories that I had trouble brushing back under the carpet. Apparently, the acetaldehyde is far more toxic than the alcohol itself. The article went on to explain that acetaldehyde can break and damage DNA within stem cells and that some cancers develop specifically due to that type of damage. It was the next bit that really resonated with me so I will quote: “Those who develop a flushed complexion when they drink or feel unwell, experience four times as much DNA damage compared to those who don’t have those symptoms. This is because some people don’t have the enzyme known as aldehyde dehydrogenases, which breaks down and gets rid of harmful acetaldehyde made by our bodies in response to booze. Professor Patel added: ‘Our study highlights that not being able to process alcohol effectively can lead to an even higher risk of alcohol-related DNA damage and therefore certain cancers.’” That’s me! I have long been aware that my face gets very flushed when I drink alcohol and in recent years I’ve become increasingly paranoid about it, especially when I’m out in company. Until now, my concern has been purely vanity-related, but it now seems that my body has been trying to tell me something far more important. Sure, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the Sun, but this article was based on a scientific study and I’m inclined to think it would be foolish for me to ignore it.
Theme Tune: Toxic by Britney Spears