Drugs.com
August 23, 2010
MONDAY, Aug. 23 — Although experts have long suspected alcohol to be a breast cancer risk factor, new research suggests it’s most strongly linked to certain breast tumor types.
Researchers reporting in the Aug. 24 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that women who drank one alcoholic beverage a day were at higher risk for developing estrogen receptor- and progesterone receptor-positive breast cancers.
Alcohol consumption was also connected with an increased risk for noninvasive breast cancers, but not for invasive tumors.
Alcohol is probably not the only factor at play here, added Dr. Gretchen Kimmick, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center.
“It’s not a surprising finding, [but] when they stratified by hormone replacement therapy use, the effect went away, so this probably has to do with quite a few other things, not just alcohol,” she said.
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