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Alcohol Damages DNA, Increases Risk of Developing 7 Types of Cancer

Professor Ketan Patel works in the lab at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Britain January 2, 2018. Picture taken January 2, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Professor Ketan Patel works in the lab at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Britain January 2, 2018. Picture taken January 2, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Radburn
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Alcohol Damages DNA, Increases Risk of Developing 7 Types of Cancer

Professor Ketan Patel works in the lab at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Britain January 2, 2018. Picture taken January 2, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Professor Ketan Patel works in the lab at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Britain January 2, 2018. Picture taken January 2, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Radburn

Drinking alcohol produces a harmful chemical in the body which can lead to permanent genetic damage in the DNA of stem cells, increasing the risk of cancer developing, according to research published on Wednesday.

Working with mice in a laboratory, British scientists used chromosome analysis and DNA sequencing to examine the genetic damage caused by acetaldehyde, a harmful chemical produced when the body processes alcohol.

Their findings offered more detail about how alcohol increases the risk of developing 7 types of cancer, including common forms such as breast and bowel cancer. It also showed how the body seeks to defend against the damage alcohol can do.

“Some cancers develop due to DNA damage in stem cells. While some damage occurs by chance, our findings suggest that drinking alcohol can increase the risk of this damage,” said Ketan Patel, a professor at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, who co-led the study.

The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen, citing “convincing evidence” it causes cancer in humans.
A study published in 2011 found that alcohol is responsible for around 4 percent of all cancer in Britain - equating to around 12,800 cases a year.

In Wednesday’s study, published in the journal Nature, Patel’s team gave diluted alcohol to mice and then analyzed the effect on the animals’ DNA. They found that acetaldehyde can break and damage DNA within blood stem cells, permanently altering the DNA sequences within these cells.

This is important, Patel said, because when healthy stem cells become faulty, they can give rise to cancerous cells.

The researchers also looked at how the body tries to protect itself against damage caused by alcohol. The first line of defense is a group of enzymes called aldehyde dehydrogenases or ALDHs, Patel explained. These break down the acetaldehyde into acetate, which cells can then use as a source of energy.

In the study, when mice lacking a critical ALDH enzyme were given alcohol, their DNA suffered four times as damage compared with mice with a properly functioning version of the enzyme.
Patel said cells also have a second line of defense in the form of a range of DNA repair systems which, most of the time, allow them to fix and reverse different types of DNA damage.

But in some instances and in some people - particularly people from South East Asia - the repair systems fail to work, meaning their cells are unable to repair effectively.

“It’s important to remember that alcohol clearance and DNA repair systems are not perfect, and alcohol can still cause cancer in different ways - even in people whose defense mechanisms are intact,” Patel said.

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Varieties

Angelina Jolie Visits Egyptian Side of Rafah Crossing to Gaza

US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
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Angelina Jolie Visits Egyptian Side of Rafah Crossing to Gaza

US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
US actress Angelina Jolie speaks to a member of the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, part of her visit to the North Sinai Governorate to inspect aid entering the Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie visited on Friday the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing into Gaza, where she spoke with members of the Red Crescent and truck drivers ferrying humanitarian aid, AFP journalists said.

According to local media, the actor and former special envoy for the UN refugee agency made the visit to see the condition of injured Palestinians transferred to Egypt and to look into aid deliveries into the devastated territory.

Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, 414 people have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,266.

Accompanied by an American delegation and greeted by former and current officials, Jolie said she was "honored" to meet aid volunteers at the crossing.

A Red Crescent volunteer told the Oscar winner that "there are thousands of aid trucks just waiting" at the border crossing.

The Rafah border crossing was set to be reopened under the ceasefire in effect in Gaza since October, but has so far remained closed.

Varieties

2025 Was UK's Hottest and Sunniest Year on Record

FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
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2025 Was UK's Hottest and Sunniest Year on Record

FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman shields herself from sun with an umbrella at Westminster Bridge in London, Britain, June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes/File Photo

Last year was Britain's hottest and sunniest on record, the national weather service confirmed on Friday, calling it a "clear demonstration" of the impacts of climate change.

"2025 now joins 2022 and 2023 in the top three warmest years since 1884," the Met Office said in a statement, noting the United Kingdom's mean temperature through last year was 10.09 degrees Celsius.

"This is an increasingly clear demonstration of the impacts of climate change on UK temperatures," it added.

"It is also only the second year in this series where the UK's annual mean temperature has exceeded 10.0C."

The previous record of 10.03C was set in 2022, AFP reported.

It means four of the UK's last five years now appear in the top five warmest years since 1884, and all of the top ten hottest years will now have occurred in the last two decades.

The Met Office had already announced last month that 2025 was the country's sunniest year since that record series began in 1910.

The UK -- which comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- saw 1648.5 hours of sunshine, 61.4 hours more than the previous record set in 2003.

An "exceptional" amount of sunshine during the spring followed by long spells of clear skies during the summer helped set the record, the Met Office has noted.

Mark McCarthy, its head of climate attribution, said the "very warm" year was "in line with expected consequences of human-induced climate change".

"Although it doesn't mean every year will be the warmest on record, it is clear from our weather observations and climate models that human-induced global warming is impacting the UK's climate," he added.

Varieties

Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
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Digital Age Brings Denmark’s 400-Year-Run Postal Service to Historic End

Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mailboxes have been removed from all around Denmark. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Beside the railroad tracks of Copenhagen’s train station, right in the heart of the Danish capital, stands a red-brick building with an ornate façade and a copper-clad cupola still turning green over time.

When it opened in 1912 as the Central Post Building, its grandeur echoed the booming postal and telegraph services that crisscrossed Denmark, connecting Danes to one another.

A little over a century later and that building, now a luxury hotel, presides over a city, and a country, where the postal service no longer delivers letters, according to CNN.

Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, will deliver its last ever letter on Tuesday, as the digital age brings its 400-year-run to an end. This makes Denmark the first country in the world to decide that physical mail is no longer either essential or economically viable.

Denmark’s postal service delivered more than 90% fewer letters in 2024 than in 2000. The US Postal Service delivered 50% less mail in 2024 than in 2006.
And as our correspondence has moved largely online – transfiguring into WhatsApp messages, video calls, or just an exchange of memes – our communication and language have changed accordingly.

Letters themselves “will change status” too, often coming to represent more intimate messages than their digital counterparts, said Dirk van Miert, a professor at the Huygens Institute in the Netherlands who specializes in early modern knowledge networks.

The knowledge networks that letters facilitated for centuries are “only expanding” in their online form, expediting both access to that knowledge as well as the rise of disinformation, he told CNN.

PostNord has been removing the 1,500 mailboxes scattered across Denmark since June. When it sold them off to raise money for charity on December 10, hundreds of thousands of Danes tried to buy one.

For each mailbox, they paid either 2,000 ($315) or 1,500 ($236) Danish krone, depending on how worn they were.

Instead of posting letters, Danes will now have to drop them off at kiosks in shops, from where they will be couriered by private company DAO to both domestic and international addresses. PostNord will continue delivering parcels, however, as online shopping remains ever popular.

Denmark is one of the world’s most digital nations; even its public sector utilizes several online portals, minimizing any physical government correspondence and making it much less reliant on postal services than many other countries.

Still, the need for physical correspondence continues around the world, even if it is diminished.

Almost 2.6 billion people remain offline, according to the UN-affiliated Universal Postal Union, and many more “lack meaningful connectivity,” thanks to inadequate devices, poor coverage and limited digital skills. Rural communities, women and those living in poverty are among the worst affected, it added.

And even in countries like Denmark, some groups who are more reliant on postal services, like older people, may be adversely affected by the changes, advocacy groups say.

“It’s very easy for us to access our mail on the phone or a website... but we forgot to give the same possibilities to those who are not digital,” said Marlene Rishoej Cordes, a spokesperson for the DaneAge Association, which advocates for older people.

The letter has undergone transformations before, in both medium and style. “It changed formats from papyrus or wax tablets... then paper later on, vellum in the Middle Ages, and now we have electronic devices,” said Van Miert.

In the 17th century, following the traditions laid down by great philosopher-letter-writers, like Cicero and Erasmus, students were taught “how to write a proper letter, a letter of consolation, praise or congratulations,” he added. “For a diplomatic letter, a wholly different style was required than for a personal, or what they called a familiar, letter.”

Letters have come to represent an “element of nostalgia” and a permanence that technology cannot match, Nicole Ellison, a professor at the University of Michigan specializing in computer-mediated communication, told CNN.

Still, like the students who altered their letter-writing styles according to different contexts, digital communication has evolved to compensate for some of the personal touches and emotional cues a handwritten letter can convey.

Nonetheless, the demise of the letter is already sparking nostalgia in Denmark.

“Look closely at the picture here,” one Danish user on X said, alongside a photo of a mailbox. “Now in 5 years I will be able to explain to a 5-year-old what a mailbox was in the old days.”