What’s The Real Deal On Breast Cancer And Drinking Alcohol?
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The holiday celebrations are right around the corner so here is something to think about as you pop that champagne. This question often comes up when I am hanging out with my breasties (the name I call my breast cancer survivor friends). I adore them so am always focused on how we can all keep ourselves healthy. I also want to make sure that our friends that aren’t in this “pink club” don’t get breast cancer.
Over 100 studies have been conducted to evaluate the association between alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk in women. All of them have consistently found an increased risk of breast cancer associated with drinking alcohol.
According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), for women who have NOT had breast cancer, just one drink per day (or seven per week), raised the risk for premenopausal breast cancer by 5% and postmenopausal breast cancer by 9%. If a woman has a family history, these risk numbers could even be higher. According to breastcancer.org, these numbers are even higher.
“Compared to women who don’t drink at all, women who have three alcoholic drinks per week have a 15% higher risk of breast cancer. Experts estimate that the risk of breast cancer goes up another 10% for each additional drink women regularly have each day.”
A Life After Cancer Epidemiology (LACE) Study identified that for breast cancer survivors who were diagnosed after menopause, women who drank 4 or more alcoholic drinker per week had a
