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Adolescent caffeine consumption and mammographic breast density in premenopausal women

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Abstract

Purpose

Previous studies suggest that coffee and caffeine intake may be associated with reduced breast cancer risk. To date, there is limited and inconsistent epidemiologic evidence for associations of adolescent diet with mammographic breast density, a strong and consistent predictor of breast cancer. We investigated the association of adolescent caffeine intake with mammographic density in premenopausal women.

Methods

This study included 751 cancer-free women within the Nurses’ Health Study II cohort. Percent breast density (PD), absolute dense (DA) and non-dense areas (NDA) were measured from digitized film mammograms using a computer-assisted thresholding technique; all measures were square root-transformed. Energy-adjusted adolescent caffeine intake was estimated using the data from a food frequency questionnaire. Information regarding breast cancer risk factors was obtained from questionnaires closest to the mammogram date. We used generalized linear regression to quantify associations of caffeine intake with breast density measures.

Results

In multivariable analyses, adolescent caffeine intake was not associated with any of the density phenotypes (caffeine 4th vs. 1st quartile: β = − 1.27, 95% CI − 4.62; 2.09, p-trend = 0.55 for percent density; β = − 0.21, 95% CI − 0.76, 0.34, p-trend = 0.65 for absolute dense area, and β = 0.23, 95% CI − 0.28, 0.74, p-trend = 0.50 for non-dense area). Additional adjustment of the models for body mass index at age 18 resulted in attenuation of the risk estimates.

Conclusions

Our findings do not support the hypothesis that adolescent caffeine intake is associated with premenopausal mammographic breast density.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health [CA131332, CA175080 to R.M.T., UM1 CA186107 and P01 CA087969, to M.S., UM1 CA176726 to W.W], Avon Foundation for Women, Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, and Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health and Health Professions and College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Lusine Yaghjyan & Shannan Rich

  2. Department of Surgery, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Graham Colditz

  3. Institute for Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Graham Colditz

  4. Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Bernard Rosner & Rulla M. Tamimi

  5. Department of Cancer Epidemiology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA

    Kathleen Egan

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  1. Lusine Yaghjyan
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  2. Graham Colditz
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Correspondence to Lusine Yaghjyan.

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Yaghjyan, L., Colditz, G., Rosner, B. et al. Adolescent caffeine consumption and mammographic breast density in premenopausal women. Eur J Nutr 59, 1633–1639 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-019-02018-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-019-02018-0

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