Alcohol and Breast Cancer Recurrence

I learned from a family member that women who have been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer are advised by their oncologists to limit alcohol intake as it could increase the risk for recurrence of the cancer.

Breast cancer can be related to genetics but there are also several lifestyle factors that increase risk. These risk factors are the same for recurrence. They include but may not be limited to being overweight, not exercising and consuming alcohol in excess.

For those of us who do not have breast cancer, the recommendation for alcohol consumption includes no more than one drink a day or seven per week. I have said it before and it is important enough to repeat - one drink is 12 oz of beer, 4 oz of wine or 1.5 oz of liquor.

I have found several references to one research study in regards to alcohol consumption AFTER treatment for breast cancer and in that study the threshold for risk was much lower. The final recommendation after the nearly 2000 breast cancer survivors were followed for eight years, was that more than three glasses a week was harmful.

The women in the study were mostly wine drinkers, but experts suggest that the same would hold true for beer or liquor. In the study, over a third of the women who drank more than three glasses of wine a week did have a recurrence of their cancer and over 50% of those women died from the disease.

WHY? Probably because alcohol can increase the levels of estrogen in the body and estrogen fuels many types of breast cancer. In a Web MD article, oncologist Jeffrey Peppercorn from Duke University states that it is not clear that ANY amount of alcohol is safe and so it should be limited to rare occasions in this population.