Alcohol Consumption before First Pregnancy May Cause Breast Cancer

Drinking even just a glass of alcohol daily before a woman's first year of pregnancy increases her risk for breast cancer later on in life, according to a report released Wednesday.

The new study is regarded as the first to focus on the effect of alcohol intake during the time frame between the start of menstruation and a first pregnancy, the researchers of the study said.

"The risk increased by 11 percent for every 10 grams a day of intake, about six drinks per week," said study author Dr. Ying Liu, an instructor of public health sciences at Washington University School of Medicine.

"These risk values were estimated as compared with nondrinkers," she further stated.

The study which was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute confirmed that drinking about one drink a day also increased the risk for proliferative benign breast disease, a risk factor for breast cancer, by about 16 percent.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 91,000 women who took part in the Nurses' Health Study II who had no reported cancer history when they commenced the research.

They were required to answer questions on alcohol consumption in 1989 and were followed through until 2009 to gauge their risk for breast cancer.

The researchers found more than 1,600 cases of breast cancer and 970 diagnoses of benign breast disease during the study period.