Coffee drinkers show lower uterine cancer risk

Women who down four or more cups of coffee a day may have a reduced risk of developing cancer in the lining of their uterus, researchers reported Tuesday.

A study of more than 67,000 U.S. nurses found that women who drank that much coffee were one-quarter less likely to develop endometrial cancer than women who averaged less than a cup a day.

The absolute risk that any one woman, coffee drinker or not, would develop the cancer was fairly small: over 26 years, 672 women - or one percent of the whole study group - were diagnosed with endometrial cancer.

And the researchers cannot say for certain that coffee was the reason for the lower risk among heavy java drinkers.

"It would be premature to make a recommendation that women drink coffee to lower their endometrial cancer risk," said senior researcher Edward Giovannucci, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Still, the study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, adds to several others that have found coffee drinkers to have a lower risk of endometrial cancer.

A strength of the current one, Giovannucci said, is that it was large, long-term and allowed the researchers to account for a number of other factors that could explain the coffee connection.

Tea and Coffee Reduce Uterine Cancer Risk Researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute recently discovered that women who drink a few cups of tea and coffee each day may have a lower risk of endometrial cancer.

Endometrial cancer arises in the lining of the uterus. Some risk factors have been established — including older age, obesity and factors that expose women to more estrogen, such as late menopause and estrogen therapy after menopause.

In the new study, researchers found that among nearly 1,100 women they surveyed, coffee and tea drinkers seemed to have a lower risk of the uterine cancer than non-drinkers.

Women who drank more than four cups of coffee and tea each day were only half as likely as non-drinkers to have endometrial cancer. Similarly, women who drank only tea — more than two cups per day — had a 44 percent lower risk of the disease.

Women who drank coffee alone showed a lower risk as well, but the evidence was not as strong. Those who drank more than two cups a day were 29 percent less likely to have endometrial cancer.

Exactly why tea and coffee might protect against endometrial is not certain. One possibility is caffeine, lab research shows that caffeine induces certain enzymes that help neutralize potentially cancer-causing substances in the body.

They looked at differences in women's weight, because obesity is linked to a higher risk of endometrial cancer. But that did not account for the lower cancer risk seen among heavy coffee drinkers.