General Cancer Information

Is moderate alcohol consumption good for your health. This question has been subject to debate since decades. While some scientist swear that it can have beneficial role in the prevention of some disease, recent studies have clearly indicated that there is a correlation between alcohol and cancer, specifically, alcohol and breast cancer.

By drinking as little as half a glass of wine per day, a woman's risk of developing a form of breast cancer is being raised significantly. According to Wendy Chen (MD, PhD), a cancer specialist at Dana-Farber in Boston, it is irrelevant what kind of alcoholic beverage you consume. The bottom line is: the more alcohol is being consumed on a regular basis, the greater the risk. Chen presented her study a few years ago at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

While she acknowledges the beneficial aspects of moderate consumption in relation to some health conditions, she clearly alarms women who have a few glasses of wine a day to reconsider. To put things in perspective though, the emphasizes "regular basis" and with that being said, she explained that an occasional glass of wine and beer it no problem at all.

But this is not the first study that has conclusively linked alcohol and breast cancer together. There is strong data the suggests that alcohol may influence they way metabolism handles estrogen. And as we know, estrogen imbalances are strongly associated with many forms of breast cancer. So the equation is simple, the risk of developing breast cancer grows proportionally with higher levels of estrogen in the blood.

Chen's study is massive. 122,000 women were tracked since 1976. When the project started, all women were free of cancer. Every four years the women had to report how much alcohol the drank on average per month in the past year. And 6,000 had developed breast cancer by 2002.

In comparison to the women who lived abstinent from alcohol: All women who drank half a glass of wine per day (or the equivalent amount of alcohol in other beverages) where 6% more likely to develop breast cancer. With or two glasses of wine, the risk went up to 21%. Women with an alcohol intake of more than two glasses were at a 37% risk of getting breast cancer.

Further to that, menopausal women were at an even higher risk according to the data generated by Chen's study. Half a glass of wine brought them a likelihood of developing breast cancer by 18%.

According to the American Cancer Society, alcohol is an identified and acknowledged risk factor. Having one drink or more a day is associated with an increased chance of developing breast cancer. Well, when we learned about my wife's breast cancer diagnosis, we both decided to live completely abstinent from alcohol. My wife had a drink or two a day, I certainly consumed more than that. And even though my oncologist told me that my kidney cancer cannot be linked to alcohol consumption, I'd rather play it safe.

Lastly, I know that many people stress on the "health benefits" associated with moderate alcohol consumption. Well, the truth of the matter is, you don't need alcohol to live healthy. You can get the same benefits or even more from non-alcoholic drinks. And just to throw it out there, instead of a few six-packs every night I now have green tea and a bottle of Kombucha.

Here is a video discussing another study which delivered pretty much the same results as the one we just discussed: