Role of Chronic Alcoholism Causing Cancer in Omnivores and Vegetarians through Epigenetic Modifications

One of the significant consequences of alcohol consumption is cancer formation via several contributing factors such as action of alcohol metabolites, vitamin deficiencies, and oxidative stress. All these factors have been shown to cause epigenetic modifications via DNA hypomethylation, thus forming a basis for cancer development. Several published reviews and studies were systematically reviewed. Omnivores and vegetarians differ in terms of nutritional intake and deficiencies. As folate deficiency was found to be common among the omnivores, chronic alcoholism could possibly cause damage and eventually cancer in an omnivorous individual via DNA hypomethylation due to folate deficiency. Furthermore, as niacin was found to be deficient among vegetarians, damage in vegetarian chronic alcoholics could be due to increased NADH/NAD ⁺ ratio, thus slowing alcohol metabolism in liver leading to increased alcohol and acetaldehyde which inhibit methyltransferase enzymes, eventually leading to DNA hypomethylation. Hence correcting the concerned deficiency and supplementation with S-adenosyl methionine could prove to be protective in chronic alcohol use.