In what may be badnews for bars and pubs,a European research group has found that people drinkingalcohol outside of meals have a significantly higher risk of cancer in the

mouth and neck thando those taking their libations with food.Luigino Dal Maso and his colleaguesstudied the drinking pattems of 1 ,500 patients from four cancer studies

and another 3,500adults who had never had cancer.

After theresearchers accounted for the amount of alcohol consumed,they found thatindividuals who downed a significant share of their alcohol outside of mealsfaced at

least a 50 to 80percent risk of cancer in the oral cavity（腔）,pharynx（咽）,and esophagus（食管）,when compared with people who drank only at meals.Consuming

alcohol without foodalso increased by at least 20 percent the likelihood of laryngeal（喉）cancer."Roughly 95 percent of cancersat these four sites traced to smoking or

drinking by thestudy volunteers,"Dal Maso says.The discouraging news,his team reports, isthat drinking with meals didn't eliminate cancer risk at any of the sites.

For their newanalysis,the European scientists divided people in the study into four groups,based on how many drinks they reported having in an average week.The lowest-

intake groupinclud-ed people who averaged up to 20 drinks a week.The highest group reporteddowning at least 56 servings of alcohol weekly for an average of eight or

more per day.Cancerrisks for the mouth and neck sites rose steadily with consumption even forpeople who reported drinking only with meals.For instance,compared with

people in thelowest-consumption group,participants who drank 21 to 34 alcohol servings aweek at least doubled their cancer risk for all sites other than the laryngealcancer.

If people in theseconsumption groups took some of those drinks outside meals,those in the higherconsumption group at least quadrupled their risk for oral cavity and

esophageal cancers.

People in thehighest-consumption group who drank only with meals had 10 times the risk oforal cancer,7 times the risk of pharyngeal cancer,and 16 times the risk of

esophageal cancercompared with those who averaged 20 or fewer drinks a week with meals.Incontrast,laryngeal cancer risk in the high-intake,with-meals-only group was

only triple that inthe low-intake consumers who drank with meals.

"Alcohol caninflame tissues.Over time,that inflammation can trigger cancer."Dal Masosays.He suspects that food reduced cancer risk either by partially coatingdigestive-

tract tissues or byscrubbing alcohol off those tissues.He speculates that the reason laryngealrisks were dramatically lower for all study participants traces to the tissue'slower

exposure to alcohol.

According to thelast paragraph,tissue's lower exposure to alcohol__________.

A.explains whyinflammation triggers cancer

B.accounts for whyfood can coat digestive-tract tissues

C.is the reason whyfood can scrub alcohol off tissues

D.reduces the riskof laryngeal cancer