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Interactions of coffee consumption and postmenopausal hormone use in relation to breast cancer risk in UK Biobank

Cancer Causes & Control volume 29, pages 519–525 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose

We investigated the association of coffee consumption with postmenopausal breast cancer risk, overall and by the status of postmenopausal hormone therapy (PMH).

Methods

This study included 126,182 postmenopausal women (2,636 with breast cancer and 123,546 without) from UK Biobank. Cancer diagnoses were ascertained through the linkage to the UK National Health Service Central Registers. Information on breast cancer risk factors and coffee consumption was collected at baseline and updated during follow-up. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to evaluate associations between coffee consumption and breast cancer, overall and in stratified analyses by woman’s PMH status (none, past, current).

Results

In the overall analysis, coffee consumption was not associated with breast cancer risk (Hazard Ratio [HR] 1.00, 95% CI 0.91–1.11 for 2–3 cups/day, and HR 0.98, 95% CI 0.87–1.10 for ≥ 4 cups/day, p-trend = 0.69). Women with no PMH history who consumed ≥ 4 cups/day had a 16% reduced risk of breast cancer as compared to women who consumed < 7 cups/week (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.71–1.00). Among women with past PMH, those consuming ≥ 4 cups/day had a 22% greater risk of breast cancer than women consuming < 7 cups/week (HR 1.22, 95% CI 1.01–1.47). No association was found among current PMH users. We found no significant interaction between PMH and coffee consumption (p = 0.24).

Conclusions

Coffee consumption might be associated with increased breast cancer risk in women who used hormones in the past. Further studies are warranted to confirm these findings and elucidate potential biological mechanisms underlying the observed associations.

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Acknowledgments

This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource.

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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, 2004 Mowry Rd, Gainesville, FL, 32610, USA

    Lusine Yaghjyan, Shannan Rich & Volker Mai

  2. Department of Geography, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, 330 Newell Dr, Gainesville, FL, 32603, USA

    Liang Mao

  3. Department of Cancer Epidemiology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, 12902 USF Magnolia Dr, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA

    Kathleen M. Egan

Authors
  1. Lusine Yaghjyan
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  2. Shannan Rich
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Correspondence to Lusine Yaghjyan.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed consent

This study was approved by the University of Florida Institutional Review Board. UK Biobank was approved by the North West Multi-centre Research Ethics Committee (MREC), which covers the UK. All participants of UK Biobank provided written consent at recruitment.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

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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Yaghjyan, L., Rich, S., Mao, L. et al. Interactions of coffee consumption and postmenopausal hormone use in relation to breast cancer risk in UK Biobank. Cancer Causes Control 29, 519–525 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-018-1028-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-018-1028-x

Keywords

  • Coffee intake
  • Postmenopausal hormones
  • Breast cancer risk
  • UK Biobank