There's been an enormous amount of ink spread on this study, in large measure because of the 70,000 people studied; a copy of the September 27 press release appears here.
The New York Times is carrying an analysis of the study today; extracts:
A new study linking alcoholic beverages to breast cancer has left many women in a panic. Should you give up evening cocktails? Should you stop cooking with wine?
The latest data, gathered by researchers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., are based on the drinking habits of more than 70,000 women who supplied dietary information during health examinations between 1978 and 1985. The truth is, the findings aren’t nearly as scary as they sound.
The highest risk of breast cancer was found among women who consumed on average more than three alcoholic beverages a day. Among those who consumed less, one drink a day didn’t increase breast cancer risk at all and two drinks a day raised the odds only slightly. The main finding of the new research is that a woman’s overall risk was the same whether she drank white wine, red wine, beer or spirits.
The question for most women now, though, is whether the apparent health benefits associated with moderate drinking outweigh the slight increase in breast cancer risk. Scientists don’t know how exactly alcohol contributes to breast cancer, but they know levels of circulating estrogen tend to be higher in women who drink.
The Kaiser study found a 30 percent increase in risk with three drinks a day. A pooled analysis by Harvard researchers of six studies on alcohol and breast cancer shows that a woman’s risk increases by about 9 percent for every 10 grams of alcohol a day that she drinks. In the United States, a typical drink delivers about 12 grams to 14 grams of alcohol. That means just two drinks a day might increase a woman’s risk for breast cancer by 27 percent. That’s about the same increase associated with long-term use of estrogen or smoking a pack a day of cigarettes.
But before you panic, remember these scary percentages translate into very small risks for the individual woman. A typical 50-year-old woman has a five-year breast cancer risk of about 3 percent. If her risk jumps by 30 percent, her individual risk is still only about 4 percent.
Entire article and discussion appear here; free registration required: Another Quaff of Confusion About Alcohol.
The discussion of the article is particularly intelligent, something that can't always be said about NYTimes reader discussions.
Regards, Bob
