Alcohol and cancer in women

[Guest guest]

For a short while I tried drinking a glass of red wine in the evening,

but quit because I didn't like the extra calories, nor the fuzzy

thinking. Now I feel better about that decision.

This is a subject close to my own heart:

More evidence links alcohol, cancer in women

WASHINGTON †" A study of nearly 1.3 million British women offers yet

more evidence that moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of

a handful of cancers. British researchers surveyed middle-aged women

at breast cancer screening clinics about their drinking habits, and

tracked their health for seven years.

A quarter of the women reported no alcohol use. Nearly all the rest

reported fewer than three drinks a day; the average was one drink a

day. Researchers compared the lightest drinkers †" two or fewer drinks

a week †" with people who drank more.

Each extra drink per day increased the risk of breast, rectal and

liver cancer, University of Oxford researchers reported Tuesday in the

Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The type of alcohol †" wine,

beer or liquor †" didn't matter.

That supports earlier research, but the new wrinkle: Alcohol

consumption was linked to esophageal and oral cancers only when

smokers drank.

Also, moderate drinkers actually had a lower risk of thyroid cancer,

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and renal cell cancer.

For an individual woman, the overall alcohol risk is small. In

developed countries, about 118 of every 1,000 women develop any of

these cancers, and each extra daily drink added 11 breast cancers and

four of the other types to that rate, the study found.

But population-wide, 13 percent of those cancers in Britain may be

attributable to alcohol, the researchers concluded.

Moderate alcohol use has long been thought to be heart-healthy,

something the new research doesn't address but that prompts repeated

debate about safe levels. U.S. health guidelines already recommend

that women consume no more than one drink a day; two a day for men,

who metabolize alcohol differently.

" You have to balance all those things out, " said Dr. Philip J. ,

who researches alcohol and cancer at the National Institutes of

Health. " This kind of information is important for people to know and

to consult with their physician about the various risk factors they have. "

http://news./s/ap/20090224/ap_on_he_me/med_alcohol_cancer