Acetaldehyde, a flavoring compound found in many beverages and foods, appears to be a major underlying factor for the carcinogenicity of alcoholic beverages, especially for esophageal and oral cancers, according to a new study in the Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research (January 6, 2011).
A team of German and Russian researchers evaluated the role of acetaldehyde in alcoholic beverages as an additional factor in the etiology of oral cancer. They determined salivary acetaldehyde levels in different alcoholic beverages (beer, cider, wine, sherry, vodka, calvados, grape marc spirit, tequila, cherry spirit), without swallowing, to exclude systemic ethanol metabolism.
They found that rinsing the mouth for 30 seconds with these beverages increased salivary acetaldehyde above levels previously judged to be carcinogenic in vitro, with levels up to 1,000 micromolar (microM) in beverages with extreme acetaldehyde content. The highest salivary acetaldehyde concentration was found 30 seconds after using the beverages (average 353 microM), with the average concentration decreasing at the 2-minute (156 microM), 5-minute (76 microM), and 10-minute (40 microM) sampling points.
The salivary acetaldehyde concentration depends primarily on the direct ingestion of acetaldehyde contained in the beverages at the 30-second sampling, while the influence of the metabolic formation from ethanol becomes the major factor at the 2-minute sampling point, the researchers noted.
"At present, research into the mechanistic aspects of acetaldehyde-related oral cancer has been focused on salivary acetaldehyde that is formed either from ethanol metabolism in the epithelia or from microbial oxidation of ethanol by the oral microflora," they wrote. "This study offers a plausible mechanism to explain the increased risk for oral cancer associated with high acetaldehyde concentrations in certain beverages."
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