Too Much Or Too Little

The last people to fault drunkards from drinking themselves to death are those who do not brush their teeth regularly. And studies discussed in this article tell you why.

LAWRENCE Welk said: “For a while we had trouble trying to get the sound of a champagne cork exploding out of the bottle. I solved the problem by sticking my finger in my mouth and popping it out.”

Non-drinkers can assure any person they can get on without a bottle of champagne or beer. But even they might not be able to get away from the scourge that plagues heavy drinkers—oral, laryngeal or pharyngeal cancer. The culprit is acetaldehyde (ALDH), a byproduct of alcohol oxidation that causes disarray of genetic materials eventually leading to cancer. A less known study in 2001 found that even people with normal levels of ALDH (deficiency in ALDH builds up acetaldehyde in the mouth after drinking alcohol) can develop oral cancer because of acetaldehyde.

In their report published in “Alcohol,” S. Vakevainen, J. Tillonen and M. Salaspuro noted that acetaldehyde can also be found in the saliva even without drinking any alcoholic beverage. And that results from bacterial metabolism. Certain bacteria in the normal oral flora give out acetaldehyde as metabolic waste product.

For this reason, poor dental state or lack of oral hygiene, which obviously encourages bacteria to grow in the oral cavity and accumulate acetaldehyde, heightens the risk for... [Read more.]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 18 May 2011.

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