Ladies, keep a tab on your drinking

Light to moderate alcohol drinkers have an increased risk of breast cancer compared to women who do not drink beer, wine or liquor, said a US study published earlier this week.

Light to moderate alcohol drinkers have an increased risk of breast cancer compared to women who do not drink beer, wine or liquor, said a US study published earlier this week. Women who drink three to six glasses of alcohol per week have a 15 percent higher risk of getting breast cancer than women who do not drink, said the research led by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Women drinking

Women who drink on average two glasses daily of alcohol show a 51 percent higher risk of breast cancer, said the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers followed 105,986 women who answered survey questions about their health and alcohol consumption from 1980 until 2008.

“There are no data to provide assurance that giving up alcohol will reduce breast cancer risk,” said an accompanying editorial by Steven Narod, a doctor at the Women’s College Research Institute, Toronto. “Women who abstain from all alcohol may find that a potential benefit of lower breast cancer risk is more than offset by the relinquished benefit of reduced cardiovascular mortality associated with an occasional glass of red wine,” he wrote.