More Evidence to Link Between Risk and Drinking Alcohol

Find a cure. You can go crazy looking at all the increase and decrease risk data. According to them my healthy lifestyle should have protected me from cancer.

I'll take my chances. I already gave up smoking and white sugar. You will have to pry my coffee and wine from my cold dead hands.

I hate this type of fear-mongering by the irresponsible media. As if cancer patients weren't already under assault by random strangers telling them what to do to cure their cancer. Now every time I'm enjoying a glass of wine I'll get every Tom Dick and Harry telling me to stop drinking because they read something somewhere.

I think general population is ignorant about cancer, so giving them half baked information won't do any good. Let us cancer patients deal with it with our medical teams

Knitpig...ditto!

With all the hell I've been through in the last year, I'll be damned if I'm going to give up drinking my chardonnay! I was a runner, too, before I was diagnosed, three miles a day. Guess my cancer didn't read the handbook!

Agreed. If I can't enjoy a glass of wine every now and then --

Wtf. Is coffee bad, too? I only do 1 cup a day.

Regarding recurrence and alcohol, I found this:

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2016...

Wallycat & muska, I'm with you on this. Perhaps the risk of developing a primary ER+ breast tumor in a patient who doesn't have bc and has never been and is not receiving anti-estrogen treatment is elevated—the physiological process, so goes the current theory, is that alcohol inhibits the liver from clearing estrogen from the body. But those of us on an AI, who no longer make estrogen in our ovaries and whose androgens are thwarted from conversion into estrogens, don't fit that paradigm. And those on Tamoxifen have denied their tumor cells access to the estrogen their ovaries still make, as well as to those estrogens converted from androgens should be nearly as protected against any recurrence risk attributable to imbibing moderately.

Of course, cancer or not, antihormonals or not, alcohol still is calorie-dense and in excess harms the liver in general. So, of all the doctors of mine I consulted about my wine after diagnosis (PCP said 5 3-oz. glasses a week were okay and still recommends a 5-oz. glass a day to those at non-cancer patients at cardiac risk who do drink, BS said 3 5-oz. glasses, MO said 2 5-oz. glasses, shrink—a fellow oenophile—said to teetotal), I'm going with the advice of my BS' NP: “Moderation in all things." She's still with us, NED, after 20 years.

And I'll drink to that. If the wine is great and it goes with the food or the occasion, I will drink it moderately. If it is merely alcoholic, or if I have neither the occasion nor the meal to complement it, I won't drink. Simple as that. To me, wine is a food, with food's advantages and disadvantages.

From the ncbi studies, note this language:

"Furthermore, one could speculate that use of antiestrogen therapy, such as aromatase inhibitors, could possibly counteract the effects of alcohol on the endogenous estrogen supply. In other studies, alcohol was found to increase the expression and proliferation of ERs in cultured human breast cancer cells…” (emphasis mine)

So the study did not control for type of adjuvant therapy, whether SERM, AI or none; and the “other studies” finding alcohol “increase(d) the expression & proliferation of ERs” were in vitro—yup—test tube or Petri dish--one step down from even mice studies.

My family medical history is a cardiovascular train wreck: both parents died of heart disease (dad had 2 MIs at 50 and died at 72 of his third; mom died of heart failure & COPD at 85, 20 years after quitting smoking); maternal uncle died of MI at 49, maternal GF of MI at 64, paternal GM had her first MI at 61 and died at 66 of her second. Except for my mom (who did enjoy a little nightcap—originally blackberry brandy but eventually 2 oz. of pinot grigio, and she did make it to 85), what did these relatives all have in common? They were all teetotalers. My ticker is much likelier to kill me than are my boobs (kinahurrah, scutta malocchio, knock wood). And the association with insulin in obese & overweight women? Gonna talk to my PCP in 4 weeks when we see how well Crestor has lowered my total and LDL cholesterol and how much it’s spiked my glucose and a1c. Perhaps this is why Metformin is beginning to be considered as having anti-bc properties…and it could help me lose a little more weight than diet & exercise alone.

1 or 2 glasses a week won’t hurt you, so long as you don’t feel compelled to drink them. As for me, I’m 66. The clock is ticking and there’s only so much time remaining to enjoy life’s little pleasures, try new things and visit new places. I could live as long as my mom (whose heart disease came from smoking as much as genetics and still made it to 85) or I could die of a heart attack any day, like my paternal grandma who died at my age. Did anyone ever say on their deathbed “Damn—wish I’d never eaten that tiramisu, drank that champagne or walked on the Great Wall of China?” (Unless they died from listeria due to spoiled mascarpone in the tiramisu, aspirated the champagne and choked to death, or fell off the Great Wall).

And also, walking 7 kms a day is not good enough, I have to start jogging. Keep that wine chilled as I will really need it after a jog. How many of us at our ages or with side effects from treatment or medication, can jog or participate in vigorous activity? I found this study a total downer and then I became mad. We are exposed to assaults against our bodies and souls and then expected to jog our way to health and happiness.. And then forgo alcohol, sugar, coffee and anything special. Does this sound like torture to you? And any coincidence that this is a cancer that affects mainly women.

I'm copying a great post of Beesie's a couple of years ago

BeesieJoined: Jan 2006Posts: 8,859

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Aug 24, 2013 03:46PM Beesie wrote:

I enjoy a glass - or two - of wine with dinner most evenings. No guilt here.

The research on alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk is really a mixed bag. I'd say that there is enough evidence to suggest that there is some connection, but the connection is weak and it most certainly doesn't affect everyone. It's easy to come up with a long list of women who never consumed alcohol who were diagnosed with breast cancer, and an even longer list of women who consumed a lot of alcohol but who were never diagnosed with breast cancer.

Alcohol is considered to be a "low risk" factor for breast cancer (Breast Cancer Risk Factors Table), and it's important to keep in mind that moderate alcohol consumption actually reduces mortality from other conditions such as heart disease. Therefore the net affect of moderate alcohol consumption (considering breast cancer and other diseases) is either neutral or possibly even positive (i.e. a slight reduction in over-all mortality).

Some of the research:

- From May of this year, out of the UK: Breast cancer rates in under-50s at record high

"Alcohol is an established risk factor for breast cancer. Cancer Research UK reports that the combined results of two large systematic reviews of the published evidence, in addition to findings from the UK Million Women Study, suggest that each additional unit of alcohol per day can increase a woman's risk of the disease by between 7% and 12%. The research suggests that by the age of 80, roughly the following number of women will have developed breast cancer:

• 9 out of 100 if they don't drink at all
• 10 out of 100 if they have two drinks a day
• 13 out of 100 if they have six drinks a day

However, as Cancer Research UK does say, the possible risk increase from alcohol is less compared to the greater influence of other factors – particularly hormonal factors."

This is saying that if I have 2 drinks a day, over the course of my entire life to the age of 80, I will increase my breast cancer risk from 9% to 10%. That's an 11% relative increase in risk, but in absolute terms it's only a 1 percentage point increase. I appreciate that the medical community is concerned about alcohol consumption because for the population as a whole, 1% of women is a lot of women. So this can represent many more cases of breast cancer. But for an individual, a 10% risk up to age 80 vs. a 9% risk up to age 80 isn't much of an increase - it's not something I'm going to worry about. I do think however that women who have 6 drinks a day probably should consider cutting back.

- From November 2012, also from the UK: Glass of wine a day 'fights breast cancer'

"They looked at 13,525 women who had been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, who they followed for up to 15 years. Those who drank seven units a week cut the chance of dying from breast cancer in a decade from 20 to 18 per cent, and those who drank 14 units weekly reduced the chance to 16 per cent."

WOOHOO to having a drink a day!!

- From January 2012: Alcohol intake and mortality among women with invasive breast cancer.

"Women who consumed 10 g per day (corresponding to approximately 0.75 to 1 drinks) or more of alcohol had an adjusted HR (95% CI) of breast cancer-specific death of 1.36 (0.82-2.26;p(trend)=0.47) compared with non-drinkers. A significant inverse association was observed between alcohol and non-breast cancer deaths. Those who consumed 3.4-9.9 g per day of alcohol had a 33% lower risk of death compared with non-drinkers (95% CI 0.50-0.90;p(trend)=0.04). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that alcohol intake up to approximately one small drink per day does not negatively impact breast cancer-specific survival and a half drink per day is associated with a decreased risk of mortality from other causes."

- From July 2009: Alcohol consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease and death in women: potential mediating mechanisms.

This study says that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of dying of heart disease by 21.8%.

- This study is older (1995) but they found even more positive numbers when it comes to heart disease: Alcohol Consumption and Mortality among Women

"among women 50 or older, light-to-moderate drinkers (1.5 to 29.9 g per day) had a significant reduction in mortality from all causes, which appeared to be the result of a substantially lower risk of fatal cardiovascular disease. Among light-to-moderate drinkers, the relative risk of death from a cardiovascular cause was 0.59 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.47 to 0.73) for women 50 years of age or older. "

A 41% reduction in mortality from heart disease?? And according to the table in the article, an overall reduction in mortality (from all causes) of 12%? Hand me the glass!

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Seriously, I'm not suggesting that anyone who doesn't drink should take up drinking. But I am suggesting that if you enjoy a drink and if you maintain moderate consumption, the breast cancer risk is low and may in fact be outweighed (from an overall health and survival standpoint) by the benefits related to heart disease.

For myself, I also consider that stress is probably not helpful when it comes to the development of cancer. I doubt that stress causes cancer but I suspect that if you have some cancer cells in your body, stress might be a trigger to move those cells out of dormancy. I know that if I worry about my wine consumption, I get stressed. But if I allow myself to enjoy my evening glass of wine without concern, I relax. So I figure that in this way, my evening glass of wine really is good for my health!

Dx 9/15/05, DCIS-MI, 6cm+ Gr3 DCIS w/IDC microinvasion, Stage IA, 0/3 nodes, ER+/PR- "No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." Edmund Burke

sandy...i hate to be Debbie Downer..regarding statins and avoiding a heart attack....

http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/ask-the...

....what many people don't realize...is....That as many as 50% of heart attack suffers have normal cholesterol numbers..and...for women...the evidence of taking statins isn't as strong as it is for men. What this all means is that we all need to know our risk factors for heart disease and then determine if the benefits of taking a statin will outweigh the risks...

I also want to mention that for most women, our risk of having a stroke is greater than our risk of heart disease.

That said, my risk of dying from a heart attack is probably greater than my risk of having a distal recurrence of breast cancer...

So...I am going to stay the course and keep drinking wine...it dampens my thoughts of the Grim Reaper coming for me...

Cheers!

wally...I think studies like this one are absurd...rubbish! The Queen? Considering her father died young of lung cancer, most probably due to smoking and her mother lived into her 90's...I think the fact that she doesn't smoke, is both physicially and mentally engaged ( still rides a horse and is briefed each day by the PM)....and drinks plenty of alcohol should be a recipe for her living a quality life into her 100s...

Well, TB, since you asked...

Ditto to everything I said previously, as per my earlier post that Melissa copied here (thank you!).

As for the specifics of this report, first, the title of this thread is misleading. This report is a summary analysis of 119 studies from around the world, all of which have been previously reported. So this is not "More Evidence", this is simply a rehash of studies that we've already heard about, repackaged into a single report.

Second, we have to put these findings in context. A 5% increase in risk (pre-menopausal) or a 9% increase in risk (post-menopausal) is a drop in the bucket compared to the 2-fold (double) or 4-fold (400%) increases in risk that many of us face should we be so lucky as to have above average breast density (particularly if it's life-long and post-menopausal), a family history of breast cancer, a personal history of breast cancer, a high risk condition such as ADH, ALH or LCIS, an inherited genetic mutation, etc., etc..

For the average woman with a 12.4% lifetime breast cancer risk, what this report is suggesting is that a glass of wine a day might at most increase her risk by a whopping 1% - spread over her entire lifetime. For those of us who've been previously diagnosed and are likely at higher risk, the increase might be greater, but it is still quite small when spread over our lifetimes. Based on discussions I had with my oncologist at the time of my diagnosis, I'd estimate that at my current age, my risk to be diagnosed again with breast cancer could be as high as 18% or 20%. I'm also now post-menopausal. So this means that a small glass of wine with dinner every night might therefore increase my risk by about 2% - spread over the next 20 to 30 years of my life.

That's not to say that alcohol consumption is not a risk factor for breast cancer. Clearly it is. But when compared to other risk factors – so many of which we can't control – it's a very small risk factor, and one that can possibly be mitigated by other activities, according to this report (exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, possibly not taking HRT, possibly a diet high in folate and carotenes...). Plus there is the fact that low to moderate consumption of alcohol may provide benefits with regard to heart health - and as VR mentioned, more women die of heart disease and stroke than from breast cancer. This is why it's consistently been shown in these 'breast cancer and alcohol' studies that while moderate alcohol consumption does increase breast cancer risk by a very small amount, it does not increase mortality rates. For low to moderate consumption, it appears that there may be a counter-balancing heart health benefit from alcohol consumption. Breast cancer risk and alcohol

The report itself is actually really interesting. The information provided about alcohol consumption is a lot more nuanced that the write up here would suggest. And to TB90's point, the report covers a long list of diet, lifestyle and even some genetic factors that may or may not impact breast cancer risk. Why is BC.org focusing only on alcohol consumption when there is so much more in the report? For me, my biggest take-away from reading the full report was learning that my height (I'm short, which is not something I've ever been happy about) provides me with a reduction in my breast cancer risk. WOOHOO!! This small reduction in risk is about equal to any small increase in risk I might have as a result of my glass of wine with dinner. Since I don't expect that I'll be getting taller any time soon, I guess I'm safe to continue enjoying my wine.