The association between alcohol intake and risk of breast cancer is not at all a novel finding. A new research even confirms such link as it found that the risk increases four times with the intake of each glass of wine or beer daily.
Researchers looked at 334,850 women volunteers between the ages of 35 and 70 from ten European countries in order to examine the connection between alcohol consumption and the risk of developing breast cancer. Out of all female subjects, 11,576 were diagnosed with breast cancer within the 11-year period of investigation.
"A woman's average risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer increases by 4 percent with each additional 10 grams/day of alcohol," says Maria Dolores Chirlaque, one of the investigators in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study, in a press release. "In other words, a daily intake of one glass or wine or beer - or less - would correspond to a risk value of 1. However, if we increase our intake to two daily glasses of wine or beer, our risk would rise by 4 percent."
The researcher further elaborates that with an increase of say, up to 15 grams per day from a reference value between 0 and 5 grams, it can be linked to a 5.9 percent greater risk of breast cancer.
Aside from that, the time and duration of alcohol intake also adds to the likeliness of developing the disease, such that the longer time a woman has been consuming liquors, the greater risk she has, most especially if she started taking alcohol before her first full-time pregnancy.
Overall, the results confirm the there is an association between alcohol intake and both hormone receptor positive and hormone-receptor negative breast tumors. With this finding, women are therefore advised to follow the 12 tips established by the European Code Against Cancer to reduce their potential risks of cancer.
One of these tips is to never drink alcohol of any type, or at least limit one's intake. Practicing healthy habits is necessary for women as the records show that those who follow healthy lifestyles have an 18 percent lower risk of cancer than those whose lifestyles are not in line with the recommendations.
The findings are published in the International Journal of Cancer.