Does Alcohol Cause Breast Cancer?

After last week's mega-coverage of the reported association of breast cancer and alcohol consumption, we at American Council on Science and Health received many queries -- some from very nervous women. Was the answer to follow an alcohol abstention program? After all, the news reports repeatedly said "any amount" of alcohol of "any type" -- beer, wine, or spirits -- upped breast cancer risk. What is a woman to do?

This question requires some perspective.

First, the claims of an alcohol-breast cancer link are admittedly not your typical "scare du jour" where there the risk is purely hypothetical. For example, when you read that drinking soda causes esophageal cancer or that chemicals in lipstick cause myriad cancers, the claims are based only on laboratory rodent studies or some isolated, preliminary population studies. But in the case of alcohol and breast cancer, there is a significant accumulation of medical literature pointing to an association between drinking and breast cancer risk.

Second, however, the term "risk" here needs to be defined. Most studies point to a 20 to 30 percent increase risk in women who consume alcohol. That is a very small risk in comparison, say, to the one pack a day smoker, who has a l,000 percent increased risk of lung cancer. Interestingly, multiple studies of women who met the criteria of "alcoholic" have not reported a high risk of breast cancer -- and you would think that if indeed this relationship is causal, the most heavily exposed population would have a higher rate of the disease. This issue is complex, in that alcoholic women may die earlier from something else or in some other way face competing risks that might mask a relationship between alcohol and breast cancer.

Third, though, it is important that doctors and scientists spread the word that there are easy ways of mitigating the relatively small increased risk of breast cancer associated with alcohol. Both of the major textbooks on the science of cancer epidemiology point to data showing that daily supplementation with the B-vitamin folic acid (also know as folate) will wipe out entirely any increased risk of breast cancer associate with alcohol intake. Alcohol breakdown products inactivate folic acid, resulting in imperfect production of DNA, which leaves a woman more vulnerable to breast cancer -- thus a supplement (about twice the Recommended Daily Allowance) compensates here and eliminates risk.

So what is a woman to do? That becomes a philosophical question -- one which requires a weighing of benefits and risks. For older women, for example, alcohol consumption can offer cardiovascular benefits. You could always take the middle ground, choosing to drink in moderation and pop a folic acid pill daily to derive the protection it offers.

Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).

Comments

[olivine]

Do women in France and Italy have a high rate of breast cancer? These countries have been drinking copious amounts of wine for centuries...anyone know about this?

[NavyMom]

It would seem that if alcohol caused breast cancer, there would be more evidence. Utah would have vastly lower rate than Nevada, due to Mormon prohibition of drinking alcohol. And breast cancer would be very rare in Moslem countries.

[avicenna]

Actually, despite being hefty (another risk factor for breast cancer), Jordanians were found to have significantly lower rates of breast cancer in comparison to to Americans and Israeli Jews (http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/apr2006/nci-27.htm)

[ecSurfer]

Excellent point about the value of thoughtfully selected supplements - in this case, folic acid. Here are a few additional points:
* The results are seen only in women who had more than one drink a day! At that threshold there is only a 10% increased risk. The risk does not jump to 30% until alcohol consumption reaches an impressive 3 or more drinks a day (over the 26 years covered in the study).
* Keep in mind that heart disease is the leading killer of women; in fact, women are six times as likely to die of heart disease as breast cancer... Alcohol, not just red wine, has been shown to help your heart in several ways: by raising your HDL or good cholesterol, lowering blood pressure and preventing the formation of blood clots. - CNN.
* Red wine, in particular, is known to contain a variety of healthy constituents such as polyphenols, ant-oxidants and even small amounts of resveratrol.
* The authors of the report also noted that other factors, such as genetics, obesity and age, were more important in raising the breast cancer risk than was alcohol consumption.

[texastrixie]

I suppose cutting down on drinking is too terrible to contemplate . . . As for me, the wine left in the house (half case)is probably all regular drinking I'll do. Maybe a drink when out to dinner - once in a while - maybe a drink at a party. But a drink of wine with munchies before dinner; no way. I'll miss that, but probably I don't need the cheese, crackers, wontons, etc., either. I'm a boomer, and having your contemporaries starting to drop dead makes this health concept a little more real.

[olivine]

I suggest Dr. Samuel Epstein's website www.preventcancer.com.Another good website is www.healthy-communications.com.Boycott the American Cancer Society !

[KenoshaMarge]

Being an anti-tobacco zealot, as many former smokers are I also quit drinking when I quit smoking. In previous attempts to quit smoking all it took was a couple of drinks and my willpower and brainpower went out the window and there I sat with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Fact is, both are bad for you. If you accept that and the consequences, carry on. If not, stop it. But then just don't whine about the consequences. Or blame it on plutonium.

[AgathaPaige]

My maternal grandmother never drank, never smoked, and was an avid swimmer and vegetable gardener. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 50 and underwent radical mastectomy followed by radiation treatment. At age 55, still battling cancer, she and her physicians were entertaining a second radical mastectomy and more radiation when she died of a massive heart attack. (Side note: my maternal grandfather died of prostate cancer at age 62.)

My maternal aunt smokes, doesn't drink, and has about one benign breast lumpectomy per year.

My mother is an alcoholic, smokes two packs a day, AND has breast implants. I do NOT advocate her lifestyle; in fact, it's causing other major health issues. However, her last mammogram results (four months ago) were completely normal.

I'm 39, don't smoke, have infrequent visits with my friend, Capt. Morgan, take all the B-family vitamins, and consume a spoonful of Apricot Seed Oil once a week (I read somewhere that it has an arsenic-like affect on cancer cells.) I've not yet had my first mammogram, and currently have no concerns of having cancer. Obviously, the worries of developing cancer reside in the back of my mind, hence the Apricot Seed Oil, but my question is not whether or not alcohol causes breast cancer, but what can be done to eradicate cancer at the onset?

I would rather read volumes on that type of research, and I would rather see ALL cancer research-related funding go to finding a cure for it. In my opinion, there is no hope in ever conclusively determining what causes it. I can't count the number of things I've read "possibly causes cancer" or "increases the 'RISK' of developing cancer." Basically, I've seen enough to know that it scares the hell out of people.

Cancer-researchers: YOU HAVE OUR ATTENTION! I know that penicillin cured my tonsillitis on several occasions, but I don't know about the research done in trying to find out if consuming fried chicken caused it. My humble and uneducated point is, FIND A CURE, NOT A CAUSE!

[avicenna]

Unfortunately - when it comes to cancer, an ounce of prevention is really worth more than a pound of the cure. The trouble has been (and I speak as a scientist very close to cancer immunology research) is that it is a heterogeneous disease. Without knowing the cause it is very difficult to find a cure because the mechanism of carcinogenesis is often the best clue as to how to approach each type of cancer more effectively and precisely. However, there does seem to be a ray of hope in a new discovery by researchers at the University of Alberta that could potentially cure all cancers (at least all that have a defective mitochondria) in a small unpatentable, relatively cheap molecule called DCA (dichloroacetate). We're holding our breath with the first results of an expedited clinical trial just initiated at the end of sept. I have my money on good things to come for defeating cancer without killing the person with chemo.

[AgathaPaige]

avicenna: Thank you so much for your insight and for the spark of hope on a dreary, seemingly dead-end topic. It is that type of information that people want to read about, and ultimately look into further.

You brought a smile to my face today, so again, my sincere thanks!

[olivine]

If it is unpatentable do you think it will ever be mainstream? The anti-cancer effects of vitamin D have been in the press (even the blase HOUSTON CHRONICLE!)for awhile now, and of course, not mentioned at all on the American Cancer Society's website.

[IntrepidReader]

As I've been growing up and growing older, at some point or another I have seen practically everything named as causing cancer except for the fallout from the many nuclear tests that have been done in this country since the 1940s. That's the one thing that's never ever mentioned, unless it's by those conspiracy nuts who want to talk about a John Wayne movie filmed in Nevada in the fifties and how many people associated with it died of cancer.

When I was in college, I met a woman who told me about attending a dinner party in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, DC in 1950. One of the guests was a man who had been involved in the Manhattan Project, and she always remembered what he said that spring evening--that in the years to come many things would be blamed for causing cancer because the government would never admit how much plutonium would be released into the atmosphere by testing atomic bombs. I wonder how many more have been exploded in the 57 years since she heard that statement.

Being cursed with an excellent memory (a real disadvantage in the United States, where nobody remembers last week), I not only recall my conversation with that lady, but I remember such things as the Reader's Digest articles of the 70s predicting a new ice age. I also remember the media screaming in the 80s that having one alcoholic beverage every day was a sign of alcoholism. Then in the 90s they reversed that and said it was healthy to have......one drink every day.

My rule is if I don't like the sound of the latest dire scientific prediction, I ignore it, because it's likely to be discounted anyway; and when it comes to cancer scares, I remember the gentleman with his remarks about plutonium.

[olivine]

You are right, Intrepid Reader...Dr. Samuel Epstein, Professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine in Chicago, lists radiation as one of the causes of cancer.I always beg everyone to go to his website www.preventcancer.com.

[avicenna]

I may be able to shed some light on the mechanism behind this confirmation (the news is not exactly new to researchers, but it definitely capped the smaller studies previously done that found the same relationship). Alcohol takes quite a toll on the liver which is responsible for breaking down steroidal hormones (in this case, estrogen is the culprit). It also spikes insulin production - which again increases the level of steroid hormone release - so a woman ends up with increased amounts of growth hormones that stimulate breast (and other) cancers in circulation and an impaired ability to clear them from the system. Another study just found a relationship between an increased incidence of head and neck cancer with alcohol consumption, so, if you can substitute a cup of green tea for that after dinner wine, you would be significantly reducing your risk of all cancers as on is a promoter and the other a suppresser of carcinogenesis.

[olivine]

Add to these growth hormones that occur naturally in a human body the ADDITIONAl hormones from factory-farmed animals!Not to mention the hormonal effects of certain pharmaceuticals and also known hormonal disrupters ( which can mimic the female hormone oestogen), that are in many consumer products from cosmetics to household cleaners.Bottom line, carcinogenic ingredients on consumer products need to be LABELED so that we know what we are buying!

[SharonWantsToTalk]

The seven years in between my 2 children saw the science consensus change back and forth several times between should you lay your baby on its back or front to sleep. Just last week pregnant women were told they should eat MORE fish while pregnant, despite previous warnings that high mercury levels in fish could adversely effect their unborn child. I suppose its a coincidence that the report last week was indirectly funded by the fishery people. Any time I hear a new claimed study about what is good or bad for us, I check to see who is funding the research. Beyond that I try my best to eat a variety of food groups, exercise and sleep. Thats been the prescription for good health since forever. And I certainly don't fret about my coffee each day or my weekend beers. Our national health is more in jeopardy because of all the refined sugar in our diets. Lets see some more extensive studies about that. And please, not any that are funded by the sugar and corn syrup industries.

[wbg]

Another way to reduce the risk of breast and many other cancers is to obtain sufficient vitamin D from any source, diet (about 300 IU/day), supplements (vitamin D3, not D2), solar UVB, or artificial UVB. The key for breast cancer is to get more than 2000 IU per day; for other cancers, 1100-1500 IU per day seems to be sufficient to reduce the risk by 30-50%. Interestingly, vitamin D seems to help more after cancer is discovered than before. The reason is probably that there are many risk-modifying factors for cancer incidence but few for cancer progression or metastasis.

$20 buys a year's supply of vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 also helps reduce the risk of viral and bacterial infections, autoimmune diseases, hip fractures, and metabolic diseases (hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke). Thus, the side effects are beneficial, not harmful.

For more on the emerging story on vitamin D and breast and other cancers and diseases, go to www.pubmed.gov and search "cancer vitamin D" or other terms instead of "cancer".

William B. Grant, Ph.D.
www.sunarc.org

[Peabodies]

The answer is "keep them scared". Any phony "research" will do.

[springsm]

The answer is..they don't know what causes breast cancer. So they keep looking and sometimes mice react. I wonder why we are not going after all the growth hormones in meat and other 'managed' food products. Add that to the mix and see what happens. Trouble is, people can eat right, not smoke, not drink to any excess, exercise and be physically active from childhood and still be striken with breast cancer. BUT I hope they keep looking and researching and coming up with methods/meds that will prolong life or get rid of it. I don't think research is phony..it is a 'search'.

[drricklippin]

I am a 30 year fan of Elizabeth Whelan of the ACSH.Remarkable contribution to recognizing real risks.

However I call them as I see them.

The three most consumed drugs in the US are
- tobacco
- ethyl alcohol
- caffeine

The latter two are not foods contrary to popular use and vernacular. (I also think chocolate should be labelled a drug-now I'm in REAL trouble).

I know the epidemiology of caffeine and alcohol but no one will ever convince me they are anything but drugs in the doses they are consumed in this country.

I'm cool with that as long as consumers go in where their eyes open.

I know there are grey-zone products called nutra-ceut­icals(some­where between foods and drugs)

But for too long the anti-tobacco zealots have given alcohol and caffeine an easy pass.

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

[springsm]

Right on Dr. Lippin. The problem with no caffeine is that we would have to give up our daily lattes. Green tea really doesn't cut the mustard...but I am game.

[drricklippin]

Thxs springsm

I'll do green tea if you do

DEAL?

Rick Lippin :)