Preventive effects of plant polyphenols in the promotion of mammary cancer and testicular damage induced by alcohol drinking

Abstract

Excessive alcohol drinking promotes mammary cancer in women and in males, deleterious effects in testes. Evidence about the need of ethanol bioactivation to acetaldehyde and promotion of oxidative stress on these harmful effects of alcohol drinking is reviewed. In situ relevant pathways of acetaldehyde formation exist in the microsomal and cytosolic fractions of mammary tissue which are accompanied of its poor detoxication and this lead to acetaldehyde accumulation. This accumulative process, the oxidative stress promoted, and the pro-estrogenic effects of alcohol might be involved in the carcinogenic action of alcohol drinking. Acetaldehyde formation and ethanol promoted oxidative stress also occurs in the cytosolic and microsomal fractions of the testes. In this work the inhibitory effects of several polyphenols on these pathways of acetaldehyde formation in both tissues at very low concentrations were studied. Those effects and the known antioxidant properties of plant polyphenols open the possibility for future preventive studies of both pathologies.