A couple months ago, I posted a piece about the health benefits of wine -- including the information that red wine had been found to have both cancer-enhancing and cancer-preventive effects on breast tumors in women. My hope -- quixotic, perhaps -- was that it was a wash: the antioxidants in wine would cancel out any damage done by the alcohol.
Well, a cautionary story published this week in the Scotsman and by the Associated Press says that's just not true. According to a study conducted by the European Institute of Oncology, wine drinkers are just as likely as drinkers of beer and other spirits to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Of more than 70,000 women surveyed during health examinations over a period of 7 years , those who reported drinking wine developed the disease at roughly the same rate as those who said they drank beer or hard liquor. But "light" drinkers (defined as less than one glass per day) and non-drinkers in the study suffered from breast cancer at a much lower rate.
I think this is worth knowing. But note a couple things: first, the study appears to have relied on self-reporting -- a notoriously inaccurate way to collect data. (It sounds a lot better to say to one's doctor, "I have a couple glasses of wine with dinner" than "I knock back three or four rum and Cokes every night.") Also, I can find no evidence that the wine drinkers in the study were exclusive about what they consumed; did a few of them, maybe, follow those couple of glasses with the rum? Finally, there are other factors to consider, such as the fact that drinkers tend to eat rich food and this was Italy, after all, where smoking is still de rigeur.
But enough rationalizing. It appears to be sadly, horribly true that alcohol promotes estrogen production and estrogen feeds breast tumors. Which is a problem for women prone to cancer -- or, for that matter, anyone with a set of breasts. So ladies, if you're going to drink wine, be careful. Follow a low-fat diet, exercise, try not to eat hormone-laden meat, avoid taking the birth control pill, and DON'T SMOKE. And if you have risk factors beyond your control -- such as a genetic predisposition -- you might want to limit yourself to one glass a day.
If you must do this, however, please, make it a good one.
Ann Bauer makes some good comments about the Breast Cancer link has with alcohol consumption. There is certainly a lot of food for thought. However, Ann Bauer would be wise to pose the questions to the people conducting the study, and not report the questions to us, readers of The Rake. Ann Bauer and all readers of her comments should keep in mind that many studies conducted DO isolate the results in order to eliminate other situations and increase the scientific weight of the study, and rely on more than self- reporting- the study's results might be perfectly valid. (Even though some women do drink hard liquor after having red wine, and some women do smoke, the study might have already excluded those situations by not including those women in the study.) It is my suspicion that the study has found a link between drinking more than one drink of alcohol in any form and breast cancer. even if you don't smoke and don't drink other stuff afterwards, and eliminate or normalize other influences.) Take that Ann : )