BARCELONA, Spain -- All types of alcohol -- wine, beer and liquor -- add equally to the risk of women developing breast cancer, U.S. researchers said Thursday.
Previous studies have shown a link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer, but there have been conflicting messages about whether some kinds of alcohol were more dangerous than others.
The researchers, led by Dr. Arthur Klatsky of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, Calif., revealed their findings at a conference in Barcelona.
Researchers analyzed the drinking habits of 70,033 women of various races from 1978 to 1985. By 2004, 2,829 had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Klatsky and his colleagues looked at which types of alcohol the women drank and their total alcohol intake. They compared it with that of women who had less than one drink a day.
They found no difference in the risk of developing breast cancer among women who drank wine, beer or liquor. Compared with light drinkers -- those who had less than one drink a day -- women who had one or two drinks a day increased their risk by 10 percent. Women who had more than three drinks a day raised their risk by 30 percent.
It is not clear how alcohol contributes to breast cancer, but some think it raises hormone levels in the blood to levels that could cause cancer.
0 comments:
Post a Comment