Thursday, October 4, 2007

Alcohol Increases Your Risk of Getting Breast Cancer

Red wine is good for you, right? – Buzzz. - Not when it comes to breast cancer. According to a study involving 70,033 multi-ethnic women, anything that contains alcohol increases your risk for breast cancer.

How much of a risk are we talking about? Compared to women who drank less than one alcoholic beverage a day, those drinking one or two had a 10% increased risk. Those drinking three of more per day had an increased risk of 30%.

This 30% risk is similar to the increase in risk which results from smoking a pack or more of cigarettes per day.

The statistical risk of using Hormone Replacement (HR) is not universally agreed upon. One study reported an increased risk of 1 chance in 60 and another an increase of 1 chance in 1000 of developing breast cancer from use of conjugated progesterone/estrogenic hormones or plain estrogen.

Unfortunately, the jury is still out on the effects of the hormone therapies. In the meanwhile, drug companies are rushing to supply us with drugs to reduce development of osteoporosis, weight gain, circulatory disorders and hot flashes.

The information on the alcohol effects was presented by Dr. Arthur Klatsky of the Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Oakland, USA at the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) in Barcelona.

For further information on how alcohol affects the development of breast cancer, go to http://www.eurekalert.org - Wine, women and... spirits, beer and breast cancer risk

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