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.
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.
BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to investigate the association between lifetime consumption of alcoholic beverages and cancer risk.
METHODS: Data were collected in a population-based case-control study, conducted in Montreal in the mid-1980s, designed to assess the associations between hundreds of non-occupational and occupational exposures and multiple cancer sites in men. We present results for 13 cancer sites: oesophagus (n = 78), stomach (n = 215), colon (n = 427), rectum (n = 239), liver (n = 28), pancreas (n = 83), lung (n = 700), melanoma (n = 107), prostate (n = 374), bladder (n = 425), kidney (n = 156), Hodgkin's lymphoma (n = 42), and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (n = 190), in comparison to population controls (n = 507). Odds ratios (OR) were estimated for the associations between lifetime consumption of total alcoholic beverages, beer, wine, and/or spirits, altogether and separately, and each cancer site, while carefully adjusting for smoking and other covariates using polytomous logistic regression.
RESULTS: For several cancers (oesophagus, stomach, colon, liver, pancreas, lung, prostate) there was evidence of increased risk among alcohol consumers compared with abstainers and occasional drinkers. For most sites, it was beer and to a lesser extent spirits consumption that drove the excess risks.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the hypothesis that moderate and high alcohol intake levels over the lifetime might increase cancer risk at several sites.