When Dr. Jian-Wei Gu went to Mississippi to study the cardiovascular system and the process of blood vessel growth, he had no idea he'd make national headlines about his research into the world of cancer.

Gu, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, says his discovery of the mechanism by which alcohol consumption causes tumor growth was purely accidental.

And extremely significant.

Scientists have known for a hundred years about the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. A study from Paris in 1910 showed that 80 percent of patients with cancer of the esophagus or gastric track were alcoholics. More recently, scientists have found correlations between alcohol consumption and cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, large bowel, and even the breasts. Yet lab experiments have always failed to show the effects in animals that investigators knew to be true in humans.

Until now.

It seems past studies used too much alcohol -- in concentrations of 20 percent -- and the animals just wasted away while showing no tumor growth. But when Gu used concentrations of one percent -- about one to two drinks per day in humans -- to study blood vessel growth, he detected stimulated tumor growth in both chick embryos and mice. Thus, his cancer discovery was born.

Gu has further concluded that melanoma cancers in mice grew significantly faster and larger in the mice who consumed the equivalent of one or two alcoholic drinks a day than the mice receiving no alcohol.

Gu's findings, now confirmed by other scientists, are evidence of what many have long suspected -- alcohol, even in moderation, increases cancer risk.

"I would not like to be in a canoe on the river because it was so big and wide; and yet here I am. I guess I have gradually become accustomed to the size. There are a lot of things in life like that. If you focus on all the potential problems, there are many things that you will not even try to begin. However, once you get involved in doing something, the problems are often not as bad as you first thought. The key is to just take each problem as it comes and do not be obsessed with the problems not yet here." -- Mississippi Howl

Allan Roden was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread. Dianne, his wife of twenty-seven years took a sabbatical from work to spend time with Allan during his last months of life. They had both shared a dream to paddle the length of the Mississippi river, but now it looked like a dream too late to be realized. With nothing left to lose, more than he was about to lose, which was everything, he signed up for a clinical trial testing a new immune therapy. He recovered. The dream of the river was about to come true. Allan and Dianne Roden, with Annie, their Australian Cattle Dog, set off for a river adventure in a small home-made, cedar-strip canoe. As they traveled the Mississippi river, they kept journals, the result being a book called Mississippi Howl.

"With the high water level, campsites were really hard to find again today. We finally found one that was on an island with a sign that said, “Posted DMPD”. Damn if I know what that means. We decided it meant “Dumb Morons Permitted if Desperate” and stopped to set up camp. So far we have had no problems." To read more excerpts and see photos of the trip, visit Dianne's webpage.