Equal tumor risk seen for alcoholic drinks
Women's chances of breast cancer are increased the same by wine, beer and liquor, a study shows.
All types of alcohol - wine, beer or liquor - add equally to the risk of developing breast cancer in women, American researchers said yesterday.
"This is a hugely underestimated risk factor," said Patrick Maisonneuve, head of epidemiology at the European Institute of Oncology in Italy, who was not connected to the study. "Women drinking wine because they think it is healthier than beer are wrong. It's about the amount of alcohol consumed, not the type."
Previous studies have shown a link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer, but there have been conflicting messages about whether different kinds of alcohol were more dangerous than others.
The researchers, led by Arthur Klatsky of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, Calif., disclosed their findings at a meeting of the European Cancer Organization in Barcelona.
Researchers analyzed the drinking habits of 70,033 women of various races, and asked them questions during health exams between 1978 and 1985. By 2004, there were 2,829 of these women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Klatsky and his colleagues looked at which types of alcohol the women drank, as well as their total alcohol intake. They compared that to women who had less than one drink a day.
Researchers found no difference in the risk of developing breast cancer among women who drank wine, beer or liquor. Compared with light drinkers - those who had less than one drink a day - women who had one or two drinks a day increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 10 percent. Women who had more than three drinks a day raised their risk by 30 percent.
"A 30 percent increased risk is not trivial," Klatsky said. "It provides more evidence for why heavy drinkers should quit or cut down."
Some experts said people might be confused by suggestions that drinking red wine is healthy, since some studies have suggested that it protects against heart disease.
"None of these mechanisms have anything to do with breast cancer," Klatsky said. Although it is not entirely clear how alcohol contributes to breast cancer, some experts think it raises hormones in the blood to levels that could potentially cause cancer.
Still, doctors said that other factors, such as genetics, obesity and age, were more important in raising the breast cancer risk than was alcohol consumption.
More public education may be needed. "Alcohol has had a lot of good publicity. People may not realize the risk they're taking when they have a few drinks," said Tim Key of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford. Key was not involved in the study.
According to data published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2002, 4 percent of all breast cancers - about 44,000 cases a year - in Britain are due to alcohol consumption.