Drinking Alcohol linked to breast cancer

August 24, 2010 (foodconsumer.org) - Drinking alcohol or alcoholic beverages boosts the risk of lobular and hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, but not necessarily invasive ductal carcinomas, a new study suggests.

Alcoholic beverages are known carcinogens recognized by the U.S. government; the current study led by Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, verifies the government's assertion. Detailed results of the study were published August 23 online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Specifically, alcohol consumption was associated with an elevated risk of lobular and hormone receptor-positive breast cancer; however, the researchers emphasized that there may not be such an association between alcohol and invasive ductal carcinomas.

For the study, the researchers followed 87,724 postmenopausal women, aged 50 to 79  years, who were enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative study between 1993 and 1998. 2.944 women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.

Alcohol use was found to have a greater effect on the risk of lobual carcinoma than on ductal carcinoma; the effect was also greater on hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer than on hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer.

The type of alcohol did not seem to make a difference, according to the researchers.

The study authors wrote, "We found that women who drank one or more drinks per day had about double the risk of lobular type breast cancer, but no increase in their risk of ductal type breast cancer. It is important to note that ductal cancer is much more common than lobular cancer accounting for about 70 percent of all breast cancers whereas lobular cancer accounts for only about 10-15 percent of cases."

Smoking, obesity and alcohol linked to breast cancer

Another study, published in the Nov 2009 issue of American Journal of Clinical Oncology, also confirmed that drinking alcohol boosts the risk of developing certain types of breast cancer.

The study, also led by Christopher Li and colleagues, was conducted in an effort to examine the effect of alcohol consumption on a specific type of breast cancer.

Dr. Li and colleagues studied 365 patients diagnosed with both an estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) first primary invasive breast cancer and a second primary contralateral invasive breast cancer; these patients were then compared with 726 matched controls who were diagnosed with only an ER+ first primary invasive breast cancer.

The researchers found obesity, drinking 7 or more alcoholic beverages per week and current smoking were all positively correlated with the risk of contralateral breast cancer. The increase in the risk was 40 percent, 90 percent and 120 percent respectively.

The alcohol effect was particularly significant among current smokers who had seven or more drinks per week. Their risk of developing contralateral breast cancer was 7.2-fold higher, compared to those who had fewer than 7 drinks per week.

Alcohol is a cancer-causing agent

The U.S. National Toxicology Program recognizes alcoholic beverages as human carcinogens; it has been known that overall, drinking alcohol increases risk of breast cancer.

Breast cancer is diagnosed in more than 175,000 women each year in the United States, according to the National Cancer institute.  The disease kills about 50,000 people annually in this country.

Editing by Rachel Stockton