Alcohol Consumption Good for Breast Cancer Survivors?

Researchers have found that drinking alcohol increases ones risk of developing breast cancer, but a new study has found that drinking before and after diagnosis does not impact survival from the disease. In fact, a modest survival benefit was found in women who were moderate drinkers before and after diagnosis due to a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a major cause of mortality among breast cancer survivors.

"Our findings should be reassuring to women who have breast cancer because their past experience consuming alcohol will not impact their survival after diagnosis," study leader Polly Newcomb, Ph.D., a member of the Public Health Sciences Division and head of the Cancer Prevention Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, was quoted as saying. "This study also provides additional support for the beneficial effect of moderate alcohol consumption with respect to cardiovascular disease."

The study was based on data from almost 23,000 women who participated in the Collaborative Breast Cancer Study, a National Cancer Institute-sponsored, multi-site, population-based study of risk factors for breast cancer. The study began in 1988 and was conducted in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. In a smaller follow-up study between 1998 and 2001, about 5,000 participants were sent a follow-up questionnaire about their alcohol consumption habits after diagnosis.

Among study participants with a history of breast cancer, the authors found that the amount and type of alcohol a woman reported consuming in the years before her diagnosis was not associated with her likelihood from dying from breast cancer. However, the authors also found that those who consumed a moderate level of alcohol (three to six drinks per week) in the years before their cancer diagnosis were 15 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than non-drinkers. Moderate wine consumption in particular was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, while no such benefit was evident for consumption of beer or spirits, or for heavier levels of alcohol consumption.

Alcohol consumption can contribute to many different adverse health effects, but probably the most researched and documented is alcohol's effect on the risk of developing breast cancer.

There are dozens of research studies that have shown again and again that women who drink alcohol have a greater chance of developing breast cancer than those who do not drink, and neither the type of alcohol consumed nor even the frequency of drinking changes the risks involved.

Alcohol Is a Carcinogen

Since May 2000, alcohol has been listed as a known human carcinogen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its "9th Report on Carcinogens - Review of Substances for Listing/Delisting" and has been found to contribute to an increased risk of many different types of cancers.