Can the exposome help solve the alcohol and cancer mystery?

Alcohol consumption is linked to many cancers, but the key unresolved issue is the specific mechanisms by which ethanol promotes malignancy across the life span.

• Why it matters: The field lacks a unifying biological explanation for how ethanol leads to cancer, despite alcohol being a preventable driver of multiple malignancies.
• What they did: The authors propose using the exposome framework—capturing chemical, biological, and social determinants interacting with ethanol over time—to study alcohol-related carcinogenesis from molecular damage to whole-body physiology.
• The result: This reframing is intended to guide mechanistic research, precision prevention, and public-health policy by treating alcohol as both a direct carcinogen and a systemic amplifier of environmental risk.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.