Elizabeth Tracey reports

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In spite of the outgoing Surgeon General’s assertions, some people aren’t buying a relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says there are lines of research that would definitely help.

Nelson: It's just very complicated. I think breast cancer is where I'd say for the moment it's been it's probably the most convincing for breast cancer. And there are some mechanisms related to alcohol intake, how alcohol itself is metabolized, what happens, is it the metabolites circulating around in the body? Also what alcohol does to the permeability of the intestines, to fragments of bacteria in the microbiome and these kinds of things. So I hope that this stimulates more mechanistic studies and I'll bet you we can make more sense out of it when we have mechanisms.      :32

Nelson says such studies are underway. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.