Low concentrations of alcohol caused tumors to grow in lab mice by increasing the growth factor in blood vessels, according to researchers from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

UPI reported March 21 that while researchers have long known that alcohol causes tumors to grow, the reasons were unclear. But researcher Juan-Wei Gu and colleagues discovered that cell cultures grew faster when exposed to low concentrations of alcohol used as a solvent. Further, they found that mice given the equivalent of one or two alcoholic drinks daily had melanoma cancers that grew faster and larger than other mice.

Past studies may have been flawed because they gave mice too much alcohol, Gu suggested. The study was presented at a meeting of the Federated Societies for Experimental Biology.