Is Alcohol Increasing Your Cancer Risk?
In this episode of The Vitals podcast, Leslie Schlachter, PA, Chief Physician Assistant in the Department of Neurosurgery, hosts an expert panel discussion regarding the recent advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General about the link between drinking alcohol and cancer. She is joined by Benjamin Laitman, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in the Mount Sinai Health System, and Sue Hahn, MD, Assistant Professor of Colon and Rectal Surgery at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
The recent advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General and medical experts have underscored the significant health risks surrounding alcohol, emphasizing its classification as a toxin and a carcinogen, specifically increasing the risk of mouth, throat, and pharynx, esophageal, voice box or larynx, breast, colorectal, and liver cancer.
Leslie Schlachter: [00:00:00] Hi. Welcome to the Vitals, Mount Sinai Health System's newest video podcast. I'm your host, Leslie Schlachter, and I'm a neurosurgery physician assistant here at the Mount Sinai Hospital. Today we're here to talk about the Surgeon General's new advisory on alcohol and its risk for cancer. Today we're gonna talk to ENT and colorectal surgery about its risk of developing mouth pharynx, larynx, and colo, colon and rectal cancer.
We all know that alcohol can cause. Things like addiction, dependence, withdrawal, and even for some people, some social and economic consequences. But today we're gonna learn specifically about the signs and symptoms of what to look for for these cancers, when to treat, and what those results of treatment are.
As a neurosurgery physician assistant, I can definitely see the difference between a healthy brain on a scan versus a brain and someone who's had a long. Time of alcohol consumption, it can lead to specific changes and in the patient you see cognitive [00:01:00] changes. So I'm looking forward and excited to hear about these changes that we're gonna start having to look for.
Now that we know the specific connections between alcohol and these cancers. All right. I wanna thank you guys all for being here. Let me introduce you first. We have Dr. Benjamin Layman. Do you prefer Benjamin or Benny
Benjamin Laitman: Benny's? Good.
Leslie Schlachter: Benny. He, uh, you're an assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at the Mount Sinai Health System.
We have Dr. Sue Han, uh, an assistant professor of colon and rectal surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital. Thank you guys all so much for being here.
Benjamin Laitman: Thanks for having us.
Leslie Schlachter: Happy to be here. So what we're gonna talk about today is the Surgeon General's recent advisory on a link between alcohol consumption and cancer.
To kick us off, the recent advisory from the US Surgeon General and medical experts have underscored the significant health risks emphasizing its classification as a toxin and a carcinogen, um, specifically increasing the risk of mouth, throat, and pharynx, voice box or larynx. Breast, colorectal, colorectal, liver, and esophageal [00:02:00] cancer.