CAUTION: Weekend Binges

College students, listen up! You might want to think twice before having those few extra drinks during your weekend escapades. Not only could you age prematurely, but you may also increase your risk of developing cancer.

Why? Well, we all know the typical side effects of overindulging in alcohol – weight gain, liver damage, nasty hangovers, and maybe ending up in a few places you never wanted to find yourself. But a recent study supports previous speculation that heavy consumption of alcohol can actually damage vital parts of our DNA called telomeres.

Umm…ok. So what in the world are telomeres? Here’s a great description from the University of Utah:

Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would scramble an organism’s genetic information to cause cancer, other diseases or death.

When these telomeres get too short, it becomes impossible for your cells to divide. And if your cells can no longer divide, they either enter an inactive state or they die. To avoid death, cells can become cancerous, and doing this keeps the telomeres from getting any shorter. From that point on, it’s full speed ahead. All mitosis, all the time.

Where exactly does alcohol come into play? Heavy drinking is linked to stress and inflammation. Stress and inflammation, in turn, are linked to telomere shortening. For more detailed information on telomeres, check out the U of U’s site on genetics. And if you’re interested in the science and research, here is the abstract from the study, which was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting.

Go out, have fun, make moments you may never remember…but keep yourself in check.

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