Even if we are occasional drinkers or drink little alcohol, by any measure, drinking alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer in women , as is clear from a new study published recently in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research by researcher Kevin D Shield of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (France).
The study evaluated all existing literature on the biology of the relationship between alcohol consumption and breast cancer.
144,000 breast cancer cases and the 38,000 breast cancer deaths in 2012 were caused by alcohol use. Of this figure, in 18.8% of the cases the women were moderate drinkers. As Shield explains:
All levels of the tests showed a risk relationship between alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk, even at low levels of consumption. Due to this strong relationship, and with the amount of alcohol consumed worldwide, the incidence and mortality attributable to alcohol breast cancer is large.
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