MONDAY, Mar. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Higher alcohol consumption, with the exception of red and white wine, is associated with a greater risk of breast cancer, researchers report in the March issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.
Polly A. Newcomb, Ph.D., from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and colleagues interviewed 6,327 women with breast cancer and 7,558 matched controls in Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, regarding suspected risk factors for breast cancer and alcohol use in the past year.
The researchers found that after adjusting for possible confounding factors, higher alcohol consumption was associated with a greater risk of breast cancer (24 percent increase for 14 or more drinks per week). This higher risk was confined to postmenopausal women and was associated with all beverage types. The exception was wine, which was not associated with any increased breast cancer risk, with no difference between red and white wine, the authors report.
"In this large, multicenter, population-based case-control study, alcohol was associated with an elevated risk of breast cancer, primarily because of increased risk in postmenopausal liquor drinkers," Newcomb and colleagues conclude. "Neither red nor white wine was related to breast cancer."
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