Breast Cancer Risk Climbs With Alcohol Intake

November 3, 2011 7:40 am 2 comments

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Art Jahnke

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It sounds scary: women who drink as few as three drinks a week have a moderately increased risk of breast cancer. Next question: how moderately? Next answer: less moderately the more you drink. HealthDay reports that researchers at Harvard Medical School who looked at 30 years of data from 106,000 women found that women who reported drinking 5 to 9.9 grams of alcohol daily (less than half an ounce a day or the equivalent of three to six glasses of wine weekly) were 15 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women who never or rarely drank alcohol. Women who drank more — about two glasses of wine, or 30 grams of alcohol, daily — had a 51 percent increased risk of breast cancer. The Boston Globe reports that risks increased by 10 percent for every 10 grams of alcohol consumed daily. That’s equal to a little less than one 12-ounce bottle of beer, a 4-ounce glass of wine, or a shot of whiskey. Hmm. Enough to make you reconsider drinking? Let us know in the comment space below.

2 Comments

Mara

November 3, 2011
1:08 pm

Scary and a shame, really. Why are breast cancer rates in Europe still relatively low compared to the United States? There has to be more to this, I think. Perhaps it’s what you eat (how about smoked, cured, barbecued meats, diets high in animal protein instead of olive oil and whole grains …), plus if you consume alcohol.

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Harrison Carlton

November 3, 2011
2:18 pm

I will reserve judgement until further studies give equal research on women in France, Germany,Greece and Italy where wine is used at meals over the entire lifetime of women there. Does the study include women from these countries? Or was the study just made on American women? HAC

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