Received email from my friend tonight which sheds a bit of light on infformation that was missing from the NS article. Have copied it below. This person is going to get a Nobel prize one day. Hopefully while she's still alive. Nah, that only happened to Mme. Curie. Sorry, I digress. Read on.
Nice to hear from you. Oxford hasn't been all that chilly this
winter, except for a couple of really cold snaps of a few days here and
there - including a major (by Oxford standards, i.e., actually stayed
on the ground for a few days) snowfall last week.
Re: the New Scientist article - the chances of me being anywhere
near a newsagent to buy it, and actually having the time to read it are
vanishingly small, but I can give you a quick run down of the current
state of acetaldehyde research:
It is believed to be the major player in alcohol related muscle
wasting. Currently it would appear that short-term damage is reversible
but longer -term is not. A whole lot of foods have trace amounts of
acetaldehyde which does us absolutely no harm whatsoever as we have
very efficient systems for getting rid of it - it only becomes a
problem when:
1. we totally overload these systems - such as by major alcohol intake
where the amount of ethanol converted to acetaldehye starts to exceed
the ability of the metabolism to get rid of the acetaldehyde, so it
hangs around for longer and starts to do damage.
2. Indulge in pastimes which raise the local concentrations of
acetaldehyde - the classic examples of this being smoking and drinking
which significantly raise the concentrations of acetaldehyde in the
mouth and oesophagus. This is thought to be a major risk factor in
mouth and throat cancer. Which is where we come to your reference to
chewing gum. I'm guessing your NS article was referrring to a recent
Finnish development, now in clinical trial (I think), of a slow
release-cysteine chewing gum which mops up excess acetadlehyde in the
mouth - the hope being that it will reduce the mouth cancer risk for
smokers and heavy drinkers.
Hope this has been helpful
Nice to hear from you. Oxford hasn't been all that chilly this
winter, except for a couple of really cold snaps of a few days here and
there - including a major (by Oxford standards, i.e., actually stayed
on the ground for a few days) snowfall last week.
Re: the New Scientist article - the chances of me being anywhere
near a newsagent to buy it, and actually having the time to read it are
vanishingly small, but I can give you a quick run down of the current
state of acetaldehyde research:
It is believed to be the major player in alcohol related muscle
wasting. Currently it would appear that short-term damage is reversible
but longer -term is not. A whole lot of foods have trace amounts of
acetaldehyde which does us absolutely no harm whatsoever as we have
very efficient systems for getting rid of it - it only becomes a
problem when:
1. we totally overload these systems - such as by major alcohol intake
where the amount of ethanol converted to acetaldehye starts to exceed
the ability of the metabolism to get rid of the acetaldehyde, so it
hangs around for longer and starts to do damage.
2. Indulge in pastimes which raise the local concentrations of
acetaldehyde - the classic examples of this being smoking and drinking
which significantly raise the concentrations of acetaldehyde in the
mouth and oesophagus. This is thought to be a major risk factor in
mouth and throat cancer. Which is where we come to your reference to
chewing gum. I'm guessing your NS article was referrring to a recent
Finnish development, now in clinical trial (I think), of a slow
release-cysteine chewing gum which mops up excess acetadlehyde in the
mouth - the hope being that it will reduce the mouth cancer risk for
smokers and heavy drinkers.
Hope this has been helpful
)
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