Breast Cancer & Alcohol

Not sure if this is the right place to post. I am 29 and recently stopped drinking due to some pretty scary health stuff that has come up. I have read plenty of articles that link alcohol to cancer, but it was a recent scare of my own that really hit me and made me take my actions more seriously as I’m way, way overdue to stop. I have read that cancers of the mouth, throat, etc. decrease every year after you stop drinking. Is this the same for breast cancer? I cannot find this information anywhere for some reason. Does anyone know or have an article that discussed if the risk of breast cancer also decreases if you stop drinking, or does it just not get any worse?

Alcohol can increase levels of estrogen and other hormones associated with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. Alcohol also may increase breast cancer risk by damaging DNA in cells. Compared to women who don’t drink at all, women who have three alcoholic drinks per week have a 15% higher risk of breast cancer.

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Let’s say I had three drinks per week (errr a touch more) so my risk is now 15% higher. Does that risk eventually begin to reverse or decrease (like other cancers linked to alcohol) if I stop drinking, or does it merely not increase any more but still remains at 15%? That’s the information I can’t find, how breast cancer risk changes moving forward, if at all, after quitting drinking… More for my own curiosity than anything else because at this point, what’s done is done and I can’t take drinking back!

If you stop drinking, you stop increasing the estrogen levels and killing DNA. That decreases risk.

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I’ll take it! :slight_smile:

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What about prostate cancer? Does alcohol put you at greater risk?

Self-reported alcohol consumption was assessed at baseline from wine, beer, and liquor intake. … Wine or beer consumption was unassociated with prostate cancer; however, moderate liquor consumption was associated with a significant 61-67% increased risk of prostate cancer (P, non-linear trend < 0.001).