Coffee, estrogens and breast cancer prevention

Swedish scientists from the Universities of Landa and Malmo, working under the guidance of Dr. Helena Jernström, claim that the effect of coffee is associated with female sex hormones estrogens. Certain estrogen cleavage products have a carcinogenic effect, and a number of compounds included in coffee alter metabolism and improve the profile of various estrogen variants in a woman's body. Moreover, coffee contains caffeine, which suppresses the growth of tumor cells.

The authors studied the habits of 460 breast cancer patients treated at Landa University. It turned out that the effect of coffee depends on which of the sets of alleles of the CYP1A2 gene encoding an enzyme that breaks down both estrogens and caffeine, a woman has. Approximately half of the women surveyed had a variant of the A/A gene, while the rest had A/C or C/C.

Women who had at least one C-allele of the CYP1A2 gene and drank at least three cups of coffee a day had a 30% lower risk of developing breast cancer than women with the A/A genotype who drank the same amount of coffee.

The effect of consuming two or more cups of coffee a day in women with the A/A variant turned out to be twofold. On the one hand, their cancer developed 10 years later (an average of 58 years) than in women with the same gene variant, but rarely or never drinking coffee. On the other hand, 15% of them had estrogen-independent tumors that were extremely difficult to treat.

However, in any case, most tumors were sensitive to estrogen and amenable to treatment, and women who developed the disease at an older age often tolerate the disease more easily.

The authors emphasize that it is too early to make dietary recommendations, and the data obtained need further confirmation. However, it should be noted that in Sweden, where coffee is a very popular drink, the incidence of breast cancer is much lower than in the United States, whose population not only drinks less coffee in general, but also prefers a non-caffeinated version of the drink.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of ScienceDaily

29.04.2008