Prevention and treatment of breast cancer: to drink or not to drink?
Moderate alcohol consumption increases the survival rate of breast cancer patients
These are the conclusions of a study by scientists from the Fred Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (Alcohol Consumption Before and After Breast Cancer Diagnosis: Associations With Survival From Breast Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, and Other Causes).
Previous studies have already linked alcohol consumption with the risk of developing breast cancer, confirming that even moderate drinking increases the risk of disease: for every additional daily "drink", the risk of developing cancer increases by 7 percent. Recall – one "drink" is equal to 12 ounces (about 360 ml) of beer, 5 ounces (about 150 ml) of wine and 1.5 ounces (about 45 ml) of spirits. However, the impact of alcohol consumption on the survival of women with such a diagnosis has not been studied by researchers.
The new study by American scientists consisted of two stages. At the beginning, Polly Newcomb and her colleagues analyzed alcohol consumption by 23 thousand residents of Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Hampshire before and after the diagnosis of breast cancer. This diagnosis was made to 4881 patients. All participants answered questions from a telephone interview about the frequency and amount of alcohol consumed, menstrual and reproductive history, physical activity, height, weight, taking hormonal contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy in postmenopause. The second interview was conducted 11 years later in a subpopulation of participants who survived the diagnosis. A total of 7,780 participants died during the study, 3,484 of whom died from cancer.
At the beginning of the study, almost one fifth of the participants (19 percent) reported that they did not consume alcohol at all. Half of the participants drank 1-2 "drinks" weekly, 16 percent – 3-6 "drinks", 7 percent – 7-9 "drinks", 8 percent – 10 or more. Compared to completely non-drinking women, booze lovers were, as a rule, younger, slimmer, more often had higher education, smoked and took hormones. Among women who survived 11 years after the diagnosis of breast cancer, 23 percent did not consume alcohol, 16 percent – from 3 to 6 "drinks", 6 percent – 7-9, 9 percent – 10 or more.
The results of the study showed that women who consumed from 3 to 6 "drinks" weekly before the diagnosis of cancer have the highest chance of survival after 11 years. Their survival rate even exceeds that of non-drinking women. At the same time, alcohol consumption after diagnosis has no effect on the survival of patients.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.04.2013