"acetaldehyde not only could cause DNA strand breakage but also DNA-DNA, DNA-protein crosslinks of lymphocytes of human peripheral blood."
"The animal experiment shows that acetaldehyde can cause the oxidative DNA damage of rat lung tissues, which suggests that acetaldehyde have the potential genotoxicity and its chemical mechanism is relative to the crosslinks and oxidation with DNA."
"The first step in this process is the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde. Since acetaldehyde is approximately 30 times more toxic than alcohol, acetaldehyde is a major cause of alcohol-associated side effects. If acetaldehyde is not efficiently converted into acetic acid (the second step in the metabolism of alcohol), severe toxicity can result. This is a common problem among certain people of Asian extraction (notably Innuit and American Indians) who have a genetic weakness in the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme [see Figure A]. Even in people who do not have this genetic trait, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase is often unable to fully keep up with the production of acetaldehyde during alcohol intoxication."
So the more you drink, the more likely it is that you're body won't be able to digest acetaldehyde into its acid form. I looked all over the internet and none of the articles seem to explain the actual process in detail. Very interesting.
Oh yeah, I've come to my hypothesis based on these readings that because acetaldehyde disrupts the DNA through oxidation, the electrons on the negatively charged DNA is reduced therefore losing its charge and through a series of either mutations or inhibition of cancer repressors, ultimately leading to cancer.