Alcohol: Dangerous From the First Drop

In the same week the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine issued an evidence review that downplayed the role of moderate drinking in cancer risk, the U.S. surgeon general issued a report noting that alcohol causes several cancers. The conflicting analyses add fuel to an ongoing debate about alcohol and cancer. When releasing the report from his office, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for updating labels on alcohol bottles and cans to note the heightened risk for developing breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies, the New York Times reported. In 2020, the federal government’s dietary recommendations, titled Dietary Guidelines for Americans, acknowledged that alcohol is a carcinogen but stopped short of suggesting people quit completely. Those guidelines advised that moderate drinking—up to two glasses a day for men and one for women—is safe. However, an increasing number of public health agencies, including the World Health Organization, concluded that there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption. In 2026, Ireland is set to introduce labels that warn of a direct link between alcohol and fatal cancer, and South Korea already employs labels that point to the connection between alcohol consumption and liver cancer, the New York Times reported. Several researchers expressed concerns in a separate New York Times article that the National Academies report, which also notes that moderate drinking is linked to decreased mortality and risk of heart attack, might harm efforts to educate people about the dangers of alcohol consumption.

Insurance Claim Denials Can Lead to Delays and Deaths in Cancer Care

“Would he have lived?” That is the question that still haunts Angela Pike, whose husband was repeatedly denied health insurance coverage for surgery and intensive chemotherapy at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston after being diagnosed with stage IV stomach cancer. Her husband, Tracy, died in January 2024 without ever getting approval for the treatment, despite the procedure being considered an accepted treatment for his type of cancer in National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines, which insurers often use to make claims decisions. Denying insurance claims is a growing problem that is getting in the way of patient care, Bruce Scott, an otolaryngologist who is president of the American Medical Association, said in an NBC News investigative report. “Nowhere are the stakes higher than in cancer care, where delays can literally be the difference between life and death,” he said. In fact, a 2022 member survey conducted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that 42% of prior authorizations were delayed by more than one business day and 14% of the delays resulted in a “serious adverse event for a patient,” including treatment delays, disease progression and loss of life. Another study showed that almost a quarter of cancer patients did not receive the care their doctors recommended because of authorization delays and denials, NBC News reported.

Scientists Link Stem Cell Transplant Deaths to Beta-blocker Use

Certain beta-blockers have been linked to an increase in death after stem cell transplant and chemotherapy, according to research published Dec. 30, 2024, in Cancer Discovery. Beta blockers, which block one or more beta receptors, are commonly used to manage heart disease in patients. However, beta-adrenergic receptor signaling also plays a role in activating bone marrow regeneration. For the study, researchers analyzed retrospective patient data from two medical centers and found that patients who received allogeneic, or donor, transplants, as well as post-transplant chemotherapy, had significantly worse outcomes if they continued taking previously prescribed nonselective beta-blockers. However, taking selective beta blockers, which targeted just one beta receptor called B1, was not associated with poorer outcomes in this patient population. “We analyzed 10 years of data and found that patients on nonselective beta-blockers take a much longer time to recover their blood counts. We further found this led to a significantly higher rate of complications and worse survival in patients,” said hematologist-oncologist Stephen Chung, one of the researchers involved in the study, at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. The data suggest patients with blood cancers who undergo stem cell transplantation should either discontinue nonselective beta-blockers for about three weeks or transition to a B1-selective inhibitor, if discontinuation is not feasible, researchers noted in a UT Southwestern Medical Center news release.