For all the good it may do to lessen the severity of rheumatoid arthritis or keeping women slim and trim, unfortunately, alcohol intake may also affect a woman's odds of one form of breast cancer for the negative.
Researchers reviewed data on 2,944 female patients, culled from the Women's Health Initiative study on some 88,000 postmenopausal women (ages 50-79), who developed invasive breast cancer in relation to alcohol consumption and various tumor subtypes.
Drinking a single alcoholic beverage daily was more closely tied to hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer, specifically doubling a patient's risk of lobular carcinoma, an invasive type of breast cancer that begins in the milk-producing glands. What's more, a woman increased her risk of tumors that were hormone-receptor-positive and progesterone receptor-positive by 8 percent with each alcoholic beverage she drank per day. The risk increased to 12 percent per drink per day for estrogen receptor-positive but progesterone receptor-negative cancers.
The good news: Breast cancers that are lobular in origin only account for up to 15 percent of all cases, while ductal carcinomas (the earliest form of breast cancer) amount to 70 percent. Additionally, patients were questioned about their alcohol consumption only at the start of the study, but not about their past or future use.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute August 23, 2010
PhysOrg.com August 23, 2010
U.S. News & World Report August 23, 2010