Alcohol Consumption and Breast Cancer Risk in Postmenopausal Women

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Alcohol Consumption and Breast Cancer Risk in Postmenopausal Women

http://www.hopkinsbreastcenter.org/artemis/200806/2.html

[Excerpts from the article]

One of the largest studies of its kind has found that alcohol is a

substantial risk factor for development of the most common type of breast cancer

- the 70 percent of tumors that are classified as positive for both the estrogen

and progesterone receptors (ER+/PR+). The findings were presented at the annual

meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Researchers report that even moderate alcohol consumption, defined as one or two

drinks per day, increased risk of developing this kind of cancer, and the more a

woman drank, the higher her risk. Compared to women who did not drink at all,

women who had three or more glasses of alcohol daily had as much as a 51 percent

increased risk of ER+/PR+ breast cancer.

In this study, the researchers reviewed data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health

Study, which began in 1995. Lew and her colleagues analyzed 184,418

postmenopausal women who enrolled in this cohort study, and who answered

questions about their daily alcohol consumption. During an average of seven

years of follow-up, they found that 70 percent of women in the study drank

alcohol; the

average amount was a little less than a drink a day. Overall, the authors found

that moderate drinking in women increased risk of developing breast cancer.

SOURCES:

American Association for Cancer Research 2008 Annual Meeting, April 12-16, 2008,

San Diego, CA

American Association for Cancer Research (http://www.aacr.org )