Thinking about drinking A new study out of...

Thinking about drinking

A new study out of Harvard Medical School, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, raises new questions about how much alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast cancer.

As in previous studies, the Harvard researchers found that women who consumed two or more drinks per day were 51 percent more likely to develop breast cancer in their lifetime than women who didn’t consume alcohol at all. What’s grabbing headlines is the authors’ analysis that even light drinking – three to six glasses of wine per week – could boost a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer by 15 percent.

Clearly, if the findings hold up, any level of alcohol consumption appears to be a risk factor for breast cancer. Does this mean women should abstain from drinking entirely? There is no simple answer. Clarity remains harder to find than a good claret.

On average, one in 8 American women will develop breast cancer over their lifetimes. That’s the baseline risk. Numerous other elements impact that number. Aging is major risk factor. Two out of every three invasive breast cancers are found in women 55 years and older. Genetic predisposition is another. Women who have inherited certain mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have a fivefold increased risk, and changes in other genes have been implicated. Ethnicity, tissue density, menstrual history and other particulars also play a role. You can read a fuller list here.

What’s so confounding about effects of alcohol consumption, though, is that it also seems to provide some measurable health benefits. Moderate alcohol drinking has been shown to raise levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, and other substances that promote cardiovascular health. It’s also been linked to a decrease in middle-aged and older adults. And in 2008, researchers at UC San Diego challenged conventional thinking that alcohol consumption was bad for the liver with a study that found modest consumption (one glass of wine a day) might actually decrease the prevalence of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

So what’s the answer? Right now, it seems the best course is to individually weigh the trade-offs. Cardiovascular disease is far more prevalent than breast cancer, so maybe the heart health benefits of modest alcohol consumption outweigh the small increased risk of breast cancer. On the other hand, a woman with known, elevated cancer risk probably should shun drinking altogether.

It remains a personal decision, one best made after serious, sober consideration.