Alcohol: Is There a Link To Breast Cancer?

BOOZE & BREAST CANCER
(10/01/07)

The news Friday suggesting that even a glass or two of wine a day will leave women at risk of breast cancer is, well, sobering.

Does this mean that women, young and old, invite disaster if they participate in happy hour? No: The headlines not only overhype the danger, they omit a reliable countermeasure.

For starters, it's true that numerous studies in recent decades have shown associations between alcohol consumption and breast cancer - but the increased risk has always been very modest, in the area of 20 percent to 30 percent.

Some have irresponsibly suggested the alcohol risk is equivalent to that of smoking. In fact, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day increases your risk of lung cancer by 1,000 percent over that of a non-smoker.

What is comparable? Well, not having a full-term pregnancy, or having a first baby after age 35, boosts a woman's risk of breast cancer by 20 percent to 30 percent.

A different line of studies also suggest the risk is relatively small. Epidemiologists look at the question of whether something causes disease by seeing if individuals highly exposed to the suspected danger have a substantially increased risk of the disease. But multiple studies of women characterized as "alcoholic" have never documented that these women are at an increased risk of breast cancer. So a strong link between alcohol and breast cancer is less likely (although competing health risks and earlier death rates for such women could mask any effect that might be present).

But the most important fact left out of Friday's stories was this: It has been demonstrated beyond doubt that taking the B-vitamin folic acid (about twice the usual recommended dose) literally wipes out whatever small risk of breast cancer alcohol consumption might pose.
This protective effect of folic acid is well known in the medical literature - but apparently is a well-hidden fact, as it appeared nowhere in the recent headlines about breast cancer and alcohol.

One of the two "bibles" of cancer epidemiology, Schottenfeld and Fraumeni's "Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention," says "high intake of folic acid and high plasma folate levels appear to mitigate completely [emphasis added] the excess risk of breast cancer associated with alcohol intake." The other bible, "The Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology," concurs.
Bottom line: Ladies, Don't panic. If you drink, do so in moderation (and recall that for older women, alcohol conveys significant cardiovascular benefits). And, to ease your mind, take a folic-acid supplement.

Finally, a memo to the media: Please temper health scares with a full helping of facts, not just fears.


Reference: Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com). This piece first appeared in the New York Post (10/01/07).