Learn about powerful anti-cancer foods you can eat, the bottom line on dietary fats, beverages to avoid and include, how to boost immunity through your fork and foods that help eliminate estrogen from your body and more. Serum Hormone Levels Could Link Breast Cancer Risk, Alcohol Use Increased serum hormone levels could be the mechanism that increases risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal women who consume one or more alcoholic drinks per day. Results suggest a possible mechanism by which consumption of one or more alcoholic drinks per day by post-menopausal women could increase their risk of breast cancer. They also measured levels of estradiol, estrone, testosterone, androstenedione, progesterone, DHEA and androstenediol. Investigators point out that alcohol use has been associated with increased breast cancer risk in epidemiological studies.
Results are heterogeneous at low consumption levels.
But no biological mechanism has been found for the association. Alcohol ingestion is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in most epidemiologic studies. Results, however, are heterogeneous at lower levels of alcohol intake, and a biologic mechanism for the association has not been clearly identified. To determine whether alcohol consumption by postmenopausal women elevates serum levels of hormones associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, we performed a controlled feeding study. Results suggest a possible mechanism by which consumption of one or two alcoholic drinks per day by postmenopausal women could increase their risk of breast cancer.