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Alcohol intake from early adulthood to midlife and mammographic density

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Abstract

Purpose

Moderate alcohol consumption (15 g/day) has been consistently associated with increased breast cancer risk; however, the association between alcohol and mammographic density, a strong marker of breast cancer risk, has been less consistent. Less is known about the effect of patterns of alcohol intake across the lifecourse.

Methods

Using the Early Determinants of Mammographic Density study, an adult follow-up of women born in two US birth cohorts (n = 697; Collaborative Perinatal Project in Boston and Providence sites and the Childhood Health and Development Studies in California), we examined the association between alcohol intake in early adulthood (ages 20–29 years) and at time of interview and mammographic density (percent density and total dense area). We report the difference between nondrinkers and three levels of alcohol intake. We considered confounding by age at mammogram, body mass index, geographic site, race/ethnicity, and reproductive characteristics.

Results

Seventy-nine percent of women reported ever consuming alcohol. Compared to nondrinkers in early adulthood, we observed an inverse association between >7 servings/week and percent density in fully adjusted models (β = −5.1, 95 % CI −8.7, −1.5; p for trend = <0.01). Associations with dense area were inverse for the highest category of drinking in early adulthood but not statistically significant (p for trend = 0.15). Compared to noncurrent drinkers, the association for current intake of >7 servings/week and percent density was also inverse (β = −3.1, 95 % CI −7.0, 0.8; p for trend = 0.01). In contrast, moderate alcohol intake (>0–≤7 servings/week) in either time period was positively associated with dense area; but associations were not statistically significant in fully adjusted models.

Conclusions

Our study does not lend support to the hypothesis that the positive association between alcohol intake and breast cancer risk is through increasing mammographic density.

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Acknowledgments

The authors greatly acknowledge the funding by the National Cancer Institute’s R01CA104842, K07CA90685, and T32CA09529.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Cancer Institute’s R01CA104842, K07CA90685, and T32CA09529.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Jasmine A. McDonald, Julie D. Flom, Parisa Tehranifar & Mary Beth Terry

  2. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Epidemiology Center Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Karin B. Michels

  3. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Karin B. Michels

  4. Division of Cancer Epidemiology, Comprehensive Cancer Center Freiburg, Freiburg University, Freiburg, Germany

    Karin B. Michels

  5. Public Health Institute, Child Health and Development Studies, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Barbara A. Cohn

  6. Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Parisa Tehranifar & Mary Beth Terry

  7. The Imprints Center for Genetic and Environmental Lifecourse Studies, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Mary Beth Terry

Authors
  1. Jasmine A. McDonald
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jasmine A. McDonald.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Informed written consent was obtained from all study participants for all aspects of the study, and the study was approved by the institutional review boards at Columbia University Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Brown University.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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McDonald, J.A., Michels, K.B., Cohn, B.A. et al. Alcohol intake from early adulthood to midlife and mammographic density. Cancer Causes Control 27, 493–502 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-016-0723-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-016-0723-8

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