Coffee May Protect Against Breast Cancer, Study Shows

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Coffee is once again in the news..

Coffee May Protect Against Breast Cancer, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2008) — Depending on which variant of a certain

gene a woman has, a coffee consumption rate of at least two-three cups

a day can either reduce the total risk of developing breast cancer or

delay the onset of cancer. This is shown in new research from Lund

University and Malmö University in Sweden.

The effect of coffee is related to estrogens, female sex hormones.

Certain metabolic products of these hormones are known to be

carcinogenic, and various components of coffee can alter the

metabolism so that a woman acquires a better configuration of various

estrogens. What's more, coffee contains caffeine, which also hampers

the growth of cancer cells.

The cancer researcher Helena Jernström and her associates have studied

the coffee-drinking habits of nearly 460 breast cancer patients being

treated in Lund. The results show that the effect of coffee varies

depending on which variant the women have of a gene called CYP1A2,

which codes for an enzyme that metabolizes both estrogen and coffee.

Half of the women had a variant called A/A, while the others had

either A/C or C/C.

" Those women who had one of the C variants, and who had drunk at least

three cups of coffee a day, developed breast cancer considerably more

seldom than women with the A/A variant with the same coffee

consumption. Their cancer risk was only two thirds of that of the

other women.

A/A women who had drunk two or more cups of coffee a day received more

ambiguous help from their coffee consumption. On the one hand, their

cancer appeared considerably later than among women who had seldom or

never drunk coffee at a mean age of 58 years instead of 48 years,

unless they had taken hormone replacement therapy for menopausal

symptoms, says Helena Jernström.. On the other hand, nearly 15 percent

of these women had estrogen-insensitive (ER negative) tumors, which

are more difficult to treat.

" The majority nevertheless had estrogen-sensitive and more readily

treated tumors. And women who develop breast cancer at a higher age

often do better than those who get it earlier in life, " says Helena

Jernström.

She stresses, however, that it is too early to make any dietary

recommendations regarding coffee consumption.

" This is new information that needs to be corroborated in other

studies before we can issue any recommendations. If coffee does in

fact provide some protection against breast cancer, then women in such

a coffee-drinking country as Sweden ought to have fewer cases of

cancer than other countries. This is also the case, at least compared

with the U.S. There the proportion of breast cancer cases in the

population is considerably higher, and there people drink both more

decaffeinated coffee and less coffee in general. "

These research findings are published in the journal Cancer

Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, with doctoral student

Bågeman as lead author.