Light-to-moderate drinking appears to have little effect on disease risk.

2004 AUG 5 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- In an effort to clarify the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of developing breast cancer, a study in the July 2004 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research examines the influence of alcohol intake and type of beverage (beer, wine, or spirits) on breast cancer in relation to menopausal status.

Findings support previous research showing that heavy drinking increases risk for breast cancer, predominantly among premenopausal women; however, this risk exists independent of alcohol type. Light-to-moderate drinking appears to have little effect on a woman's risk for breast cancer.

"For a number of years, it has been known that a high alcohol intake implies an increased risk of breast cancer," said Morten Gronbaek, professor of alcohol research at the Center for Alcohol Research at the National Institute of Public Health in Denmark. "The ongoing discussion has been whether or not there is an increased risk among light-to-moderate drinkers as well."

Gronbaek added that he and his colleagues chose to examine what effects the type of alcohol may play in cancer development as a result of some of their earlier research. "In quite a few previous studies, we have suggested that wine drinkers, in contrast to beer and spirits drinkers, seem to be at a lower risk for some cancers such as upper digestive tract cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer," he said. "There are several plausible biological mechanisms that may explain this, including the fact that wine comprises flavonoids and resveratrol, which have been shown to have 'anti-carcinogenic' properties."

In addition, he said, "the reason for looking at menopausal status is that it is very likely that development of breast cancer may have different etiologies depending on hormonal status, and this may be influenced by alcohol intake.

"Prospective studies are particularly useful for studying relations between lifestyle habits such as alcohol consumption and health outcomes such as breast cancer, since the information on the lifestyle habit is collected prior to the development of the health outcome," added R. Curtis Ellison, professor of medicine and public health and director of the Institute on Lifestyle and Health at Boston University School of Medicine in the United States.

"However, even prospective studies on alcohol and breast cancer can have conflicting results, mainly because the association between alcohol and breast cancer is rather weak - unlike smoking and lung cancer, where the association is so strong that it does not require a large number of subjects to demonstrate it - so it requires a huge number of cases to be able to reach a conclusion on ...