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Alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk in Japanese women: The Miyagi Cohort Study

  • Epidemiology
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Abstract

Alcohol consumption is known to be a risk factor for breast cancer in Western countries, but few epidemiologic data have been available in Japan. This population-based prospective cohort study evaluated the associations of alcohol consumption with breast cancer risk in a Japanese population. A total of 19,227 women aged 40–64 years were followed from 1990 to 2003. During 246,703 person-years of follow-up, 241 breast cancer cases were identified. Hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated by the Cox proportional-hazard regression model. After adjustment for potential risk factors of breast cancer and nutritional factors, the HR and 95% confidence interval (CI) for current drinkers was 1.00 (0.74–1.34) compared with never drinkers. According to the amount of alcohol intake per day, a higher amount (≥15.0 g/day) had no significant relation to breast cancer risk (HR = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.40–1.91; P for trend = 0.85). Age upon starting to drink, and the frequency of drinking, were not associated with breast cancer risk. In analysis stratified according to exogenous female hormone use, a higher alcohol intake (≥15.0 g/day) was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among hormone users (HR = 1.67, 95% CI: 0.17–16.73); however, this was not statistically significant. Stratification according to folate intake with energy adjustment (<219, ≥219 μg/day) found that breast cancer risk tended to increase with increasing alcohol consumption among women with a low intake of folate (P for trend = 0.09). Our findings suggest that alcohol consumption has no overall effect on breast cancer risk among Japanese women, whereas nutritional factors such as folate intake may modify the alcohol-breast cancer risk relationship.

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Abbreviations

CI:

Confidence interval

FFQ:

Food frequency questionnaire

HRT:

Hormone replacement therapy

HR:

Hazard ratio

ALDH:

Asldehyde dehydrogenase

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan (H20-Kiban C-20590630), and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (21590681) and Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (22790031). None of the authors declare any conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgical Oncology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8574, Japan

    Masaaki Kawai & Noriaki Ohuchi

  2. Division of Community Health, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8575, Japan

    Yuko Minami

  3. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980-8575, Japan

    Masako Kakizaki & Ichiro Tsuji

  4. Department of Breast Oncology, Miyagi Cancer Center Hospital, 47-1 Nodayama, Medeshima-Shiode, Natori, Miyagi, 981-1293, Japan

    Yoichiro Kakugawa

  5. Division of Epidemiology, Miyagi Cancer Center Research Institute, 47-1 Nodayama, Medeshima-Shiode, Natori, Miyagi, 981-1293, Japan

    Yoshikazu Nishino

  6. Department of Public Health, Yamagata University School of Medicine, 2-2-2 Iida-nishi, Yamagata, 990-9585, Japan

    Akira Fukao

Authors
  1. Masaaki Kawai
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  2. Yuko Minami
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  3. Masako Kakizaki
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  4. Yoichiro Kakugawa
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  5. Yoshikazu Nishino
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  6. Akira Fukao
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  7. Ichiro Tsuji
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  8. Noriaki Ohuchi
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Correspondence to Yuko Minami.

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Kawai, M., Minami, Y., Kakizaki, M. et al. Alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk in Japanese women: The Miyagi Cohort Study. Breast Cancer Res Treat 128, 817–825 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-011-1381-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-011-1381-x

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