Relationship Between Alcohol And Breast Cancer is Focus of New $1.6 Million UB Study

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Can drinking alcoholic beverages increase the risk of developing breast cancer? If the answer is "yes," as many scientists suspect, what are the mechanisms involved, and are some women genetically more susceptible to the risk than others?

University at Buffalo scientists will attempt to answer these and other questions revolving around the issue of alcohol and its effects on health through a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Army's special program for breast-cancer research.

The study is headed by Jo Freudenheim, Ph.D., UB associate professor of social and preventive medicine and a highly regarded researcher in the field of diet and health.

"There is a fair amount of evidence that alcohol may be related to breast cancer," said Freudenheim, "but most research has used inadequate measures of alcohol intake. We will be making careful measures of lifetime alcohol consumption, as well as collecting data on diet, physical activity and reproductive history.

The researchers also will assess genetic differences in the way individuals metabolize alcohol, and will compare breast-cancer rates among "fast" and "slow" metabolizers. A specimen bank will be created to store blood samples for current and future research.

"In a well-run study, scientists can answer many questions," Freudenheim said. "There is so much we don't know about breast cancer and how it develops. People have been looking at the question for a long time. We need to look in more depth at lifetime habits. This study provides an excellent chance to get some new, potentially significant insights into breast cancer prevention."

The study group will be composed of 1,350 women from Western New York with confirmed breast cancer, and 2,030 randomly selected healthy women to serve as controls. Participants will be between the ages of 35-79.

Freudenheim said researchers theorize that alcohol may influence the development of breast cancer by changing the body's steroid hormone levels or by increasing oxidation. Both of these mechanisms, and others, will be investigated via subgroups of the study population.

The research is an offshoot of an $8 million, multifaceted investigation of alcohol and its relationship to chronic diseases being carried out jointly by UB's Center for Preventive Medicine and the Research Institute on Addictions in Buffalo.