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Coffee may protect against endometrial cancer (updated)

11/22/2011 20:27:00 admin

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By David Liu, Ph.D.

Tuesday Nov 22, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Habitual coffee consumption may help reduce risk of endometrial cancer, according to a study published recently in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Edward Giovannucci, M.D., Sc.D., of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health author of the study said coffee seems to protective against cancers that are associated with obesity, estrogen and insulin.

"Coffee has already been shown to be protective against diabetes due to its effect on insulin," said Giovannucci. "So we hypothesized that we'd see a reduction in some cancers as well."

Giovannucci and colleagues observed an inverse association between cumulative coffee intake and endometrial cancer after analysing data from 67,470 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study in which participants were followed up for 26 years and 672 cases of endometrial cancer.

The researchers found drinking four or more cups of coffee per day was correlated with a 25 percent reduced risk for endometrial cancer. Drinking two to three cups per day was associated with a 7 percent reduced risk.

The study is not a trial and it does not prove a causal relationship, which means drinking coffee may not definitely cut the risk for endometrial cancer.

But if drinking coffee can indeed reduce the cancer risk, then the active ingredients should not be caffeine because the researchers found a similar link in decaffeinated coffee. In the case of decaffeinated coffee, drinking more than two cups per day was associated with a 22 percent reduced risk for endometrial cancer.

More research is needed to elucidate what is responsible for reduced risk of endometrial cancer if coffee indeed can protect against this cancer.

Another study published in Oct 23, 2011 issue of International Journal of Cancer also found the similar associations.

That study led by M.J. Gunter of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, New York and colleagues of Imperial College in London, UK found drinking more than three cups of coffee per day, compared to drinking no coffee, was associated with a 36 percent reduced risk of endometrial cancer.

The authors also found both coffee and decaffeinated coffee were associated with 10 and seven percent reduced risk for the cancer, respectively.

However, the association was only apparent among those who had never used hormone therapy.

The study was based on data from 226,732 women aged 50 to 71 who were enrolled in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. All the participants were followed for 9.3 years and 1,486 incident cases of endometrial cancer were identified during the follow-up.

The National Cancer Institute states:

Definition of endometrial cancer: Cancer that forms in the tissue lining the uterus (the small, hollow, pear-shaped organ in a woman's pelvis in which a fetus develops). Most endometrial cancers are adenocarcinomas (cancers that begin in cells that make and release mucus and other fluids).

Estimated new cases and deaths from endometrial (uterine corpus) cancer in the United States in 2011: