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Teenage alcohol consumption linked to increased breast cancer risk
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Adolescent alcohol consumption was associated with increased risk for proliferative benign breast disease, which may not be reduced by increased folate intake during adolescence, according to study results recently published online.
To determine the combined effect of alcohol and folate intake during adolescence on the risk for proliferative benign breast disease, Ying Liu, MD, PhD, of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues analyzed data from 29,117 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II who completed both adolescent alcohol consumption questions in 1989 and an adolescent diet questionnaire in 1998.
Six hundred fifty-nine women with proliferative benign breast disease, diagnosed between 1991 and 2001, were confirmed by central pathology review. In addition, Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate HRs and 95% CIs, adjusted for established risk factors of breast cancer.
According to study results, adolescent alcohol consumption was dose-dependently associated with an increased risk for proliferative benign breast disease (HR=1.15 per 10 g/day consumption; 95% CI, 1.03-1.28). The researchers observed no significant association between adolescent folate intake and the risk for proliferative benign breast disease.
Each 10 g/day increment of alcohol intake during adolescence was linked to a 21% (95% CI, 1.01-1.45) increase in the risk for proliferative benign breast disease among women who experienced low folate intake during adolescence. Researchers found that this figure did not differ significantly from the alcohol-associated risk among women with moderate and high folate intake during adolescence.
“This study suggests a dose-dependent increase in risk of proliferative [benign breast disease] with alcohol consumption during adolescence and early adulthood, which may not be reduced through increased folate intake,” the researchers said. “This result, if confirmed in studies performed in other populations, indicates that increased folate intake during adolescence may not effectively prevent alcohol-associated breast cancer.
“Since alcohol use is common in adolescent girls and young women, reducing alcohol consumption during adolescence and early adulthood is currently the only dietary strategy that may reduce risk of proliferative [benign breast disease],” they said.
Disclosure: Graham A. Colditz, MD, reported support from an American Cancer Society Cissy Hornung Clinical Research Professorship. The other researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.
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