Causes Of Laryngeal Cancer To Watch For

Heavy Smoking And Drinking

Heavy smoking and drinking are the two most common causes of laryngeal cancer. While everyone who smokes and drinks heavily won't develop it, both activities increase your risk exponentially. Evidence indicates smoking is the main risk factor. Tobacco products contain more than sixty known carcinogens, including heavy metals, nitrosamines, and hydrocarbons, whose toxicity intensifies through combustion. Inhaled carcinogens damage cells lining your respiratory system by degrading DNA. Smoking also impairs the lungs' ability to detoxify using cilia, hair-like projections that sweep particles out of the lungs. Years of smoking-related DNA damage is a direct precursor to abnormal cell growth, while impaired or destroyed cilia fail to sweep out toxic particulates that further degrade DNA.

Alcohol also negatively affects DNA by way of a group of alcohol-metabolizing enzymes collectively referred to as aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). A byproduct of alcohol metabolism is acetaldehyde, a cumulative carcinogen that can scramble DNA in stem cells. Stem cells with scrambled DNA eventually become abnormal cells or cells that continue to degrade until they cease to function. Studies have demonstrated a connection between excessive alcohol ingestion and cancer of the aerodigestive tract.