Gene Variations, Alcohol, and an Association with Breast Cancer Risk

May 2, 2008

Specific variations within two genes involved with alcohol metabolism are associated with an increased risk for breast cancer in postmenopausal women, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the American Assocation for Cancer Research.

The work, conducted by research groups led by Peter Shields, M.D., professor of medicine and oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Jo Freudenheim, Ph.D., chair of social and preventive medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo, indicates that sequence variations within the genes ADH1B and ADH1C may as much as double a postmenopausal woman drinker’s risk for breast cancer.

“We found that variations in two genes coding for the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme increase the risk of breast cancer among women who drink,” says lead author Catalin Marian, M.D., Ph.D., a research instructor of cancer genetics and epidemiology at Lombardi. “The higher their alcohol consumption, the higher their risk.”

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