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I’m not much of a beer drinker, but I do love red wine, and I’m married to a wine lover. I also have really cut back on my alcohol consumption, wine included, since I learned about the connection between alcohol and breast cancer.
From the Breast Cancer News website:
This mega-report, “Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Breast Cancer,” brought together 119 studies and included information from 12 million women, 260,000 who had breast cancer. The study found that there is a 5% increase in risk of breast cancer for alcohol drinkers in women before menopause, and a 9% increase for women after menopause.
That doesn’t sound like much, but if there is a family history of breast cancer, or if a woman has already had breast cancer, the risk more than doubles. Double-digit risk of anything is enough to give a person something to think about before she orders that frozen strawberry margarita.
In another study, The Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center looked at 87,000+ postmenopausal women without a prior history of breast cancer and found that the more drinks a woman had per week, the more her risk of invasive breast cancer increased. Again, if a woman has a family history or previous diagnosis, her risk more than doubled at 14 drinks per week, or two glasses of wine a night. Eek!
Now for the good news (whew!)
There are ways to lower one’s risk of breast cancer.
I don’t want to sound like an old harpy, but our trusted friend, exercise, is showing up as a great way to lower our risk. In the mega-report mentioned above, pre-menopausal women who participated in vigorous exercise like running, biking fast, HIIT—High Intensity Interval Training—lowered their risk by double digits, 17%, to be exact.
Postmenopausal women who Just Did It with vigor, lowered their risk by a full 10%. Moderate exercise lowered a woman’s risk when compared to women who weren’t active.
For younger women of childbearing age, breastfeeding the wee ones gave these women added breast cancer protection at all stages of later life.
The American Institute of Cancer Research estimates that one in three cases of breast cancer can be prevented if a woman will cut out alcohol and be physically active every day.
That’s good news to think about. It’s also something we can control!
Until next time…Be Vibrant!
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