Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Revealing alcohol's role begins to unravel the ribbon

Ladies... and men who care... listen up: There is one and only one unchallenged dietary link to an increased risk of breast cancer. That link is alcohol consumption.

To date, the only dietary link to an increased risk of breast cancer is alcohol use. One in eight women will have an encounter with breast cancer in her lifetime. It takes relatively little alcohol to boost the cancer risk. As little as one drink a day can provide a double digit increase in the chance of getting the disease. Three or more servings of alcohol per day gives you the same risk as a daily pack of cigarettes.

Think about that for a minute: With all the news regarding the link between smoking and cancer, the alcohol link is as strong and well documented, but far less publicized. For now. 

The whitepaper, Alcopocalypse, predicts the next 10 years for the alcohol business will look like the last 20 have for tobacco. 

Alcohol's causal relationship with breast cancer isn't new. More than 100 studies 1920-2017 have conclusively linked alcohol consumption to increased breast cancer risk. New research continues every year, delving deeper into the link, especially how alcohol disrupts hormones and even genes. 

Alcohol increases production of estrogen. Estrogen increases are behind 80 percent of breast cancers. Toxic alcohol also creates another toxin – acetaldehyde. That second toxin has been shown to alter DNA and breast tissue in younger drinkers, leading to increased cancer risk later in life. A Journal of the National Cancer Institute report showed a double-digit increase in breast cancer risk for women who drank as little as one drink daily between the first menstruation and the first pregnancy. The results were independent of drinking after first pregnancy. That study also discovered an increase in benign breast disease, a non-cancerous condition which accounts for 80 percent of breast lumps. These benign lumps do increase the risk of breast cancer by 500 percent. The more alcohol consumed between the onset of the first menstrual period and the first pregnancy, the greater the risk for both benign breast disease and breast cancer.

In another recent study, a University of Houston researcher and his team have discovered an important link between alcohol and breast cancer by identifying a cancer-causing gene triggered by alcohol. The 2015 Houston research shows alcohol enhances the actions of estrogen in driving the growth of breast cancer cells and diminishes the effects of the cancer drug Tamoxifen on blocking estrogen by increasing the levels of a cancer-causing gene. 

A consensus panel formed by the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) a decade ago concluded: "The evidence on cancer justifies a recommendation not to drink alcoholic drinks" ... a recommendation still maintained by the organization.

Only one in 10 adults knows alcohol is a carcinogen. 'Why haven't consumers been advised of the increased risk?' is a simple question to answer. Where do most people get information about alcohol? From the alcohol makers or from studies funded by them. Their information has been manipulated to protect the profitability of the drug they make, according to a new study by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Sweden's Karolinska Institute. The study claims alcohol giants are not exactly striving to educate consumers and marketers are misleading customers by hidieng facts from the public about cancer links to alcohol. Published in the Sept. 2017 journal Drug and Alcohol Review, the study found in 2016, that 30 companies misled the public about alcohol's connection to breast cancer risk. See Hey Alcohol Biz: The 90's called and wants their liars back.

Bottom line: Alcohol is a drug that's toxic and carcinogenic. Drinking it and expecting healthy results is like peeing in a Mr. Coffee and expecting Starbucks.

Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books.  Click Alcopocalypse for the author’s 2017 Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper. Image by  Peter Lecko, used with permission.