Wine Information Council

 

 

 

BACKGROUND: Dietary patterns, which represent whole-diet and possible food and nutrient interactions, have been linked to the risk of various cancers. However, the associations of these dietary patterns with breast cancer remain unclear.

OBJECTIVE: We critically appraised the literature and conducted meta-analyses to pool the results of studies to clarify the relation between dietary patterns and breast cancer risk.

DESIGN: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for relevant articles that identified common dietary patterns published up to November 2009. Multivariable-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) comparing highest and lowest categories of dietary pattern scores and multivariable-adjusted ORs for a 20th-percentile increase in dietary pattern scores were combined by using random-effects meta-analyses.

RESULTS: Case-control and cohort studies were retrieved that identified prudent/healthy (n = 18), Western/unhealthy (n = 17), and drinker (n = 4) dietary patterns. There was evidence of a decrease in the risk of breast cancer in the highest compared with the lowest categories of prudent/healthy dietary patterns (OR = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.82, 0.99; P = 0.02) in all studies and in pooled cohort studies alone. An increase in the risk of breast cancer was shown for the highest compared with the lowest categories of a drinker dietary pattern (OR = 1.21; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.41; P = 0.01). There was no evidence of a difference in the risk of breast cancer between the highest and the lowest categories of Western/unhealthy dietary patterns (OR = 1.09; 95% CI: 0.98, 1.22; P = 0.12).

CONCLUSION: The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that some dietary patterns may be associated with breast cancer risk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION: Alcohol intake has been consistently associated with breast cancer risk, but the importance of timing of intake and the impact of beverage type are unclear.

METHODS: We evaluated whether early, lifetime or recent alcohol intake was associated with breast cancer risk, and whether risk varied by type of alcoholic drinks in 1,728 newly diagnosed population-based breast cancer patients and 435 control subjects aged 20-49 years. We used multivariable logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) as measures of the relative risk of breast cancer associated with intake of alcoholic drinks.

RESULTS: Intake of alcoholic drinks during the recent five year period before the breast cancer diagnosis was associated with increased breast cancer risk (P (trend) = 0.04). Intake of two or more alcoholic drinks per day during this five year period was associated with an 82% increase in breast cancer risk relative to never drinkers (OR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.01-3.28). No risk increase was observed for alcohol intake at ages 15-20 years or for lifetime alcohol intake. Risk did not vary by type of alcohol consumed.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that recent alcohol consumption may be associated with increased breast cancer risk in young women.

 

 

 

BACKGROUND: There is limited evidence for an association between the pattern of lifetime alcohol use and cause-specific risk of death. METHODS: Multivariable hazard ratios were estimated for different causes of death according to patterns of lifetime alcohol consumption using a competing risks approach: 111 953 men and 268 442 women from eight countries participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study were included. Self-reported alcohol consumption at ages 20, 30, 40 or 50 years and at enrollment were used for the analysis; 26 411 deaths were observed during an average of 12.6 years of follow-up. RESULTS: The association between lifetime alcohol use and death from cardiovascular diseases was different from the association seen for alcohol-related cancers, digestive, respiratory, external and other causes. Heavy users (>5 drinks/day for men and >2.5 drinks/day for women), regardless of time of cessation, had a 2- to 5-times higher risk of dying due to alcohol-related cancers, compared with subjects with lifetime light use (=1 and =0.5 drink/week for men and women, respectively). Compared with lifetime light users, men who used

 

 

 

Alcohol is a risk factor for breast cancer. We wanted to determine if ADH polymorphisms which modify the rate of ethanol oxidation to acetaldehyde, were associated with breast cancer risk. We matched 809 postmenopausal breast cancer cases with 809 controls, nested within the prospective Diet, Cancer and Health study. Among variant allele carriers of ADH1C Arg(272)Gln, alcohol intake increased the risk of breast cancer with 14% (95% CI: 1.04-1.24) per 10g alcohol/day, but not among homozygous wild type carriers (p for interaction=0.06). Thus, slow oxidation of ethanol seemed to be associated with breast cancer risk.