the overall risk of developing cancer
still grew for women who drank two
or three drinks a day instead of just
one or two.
In the second study, in JAGS,
researchers conducted telephone
interviews in 2002 with more than
12,500 U.S. residents over 55
and checked up on them in 2006.
After accounting for various
factors such as socioeconomic
status, which previous research
has shown to be associated with
mortality, the researchers found
evidence that a drink a day
reduced the risk of death within
those four years.
The take-away message from
the research depends on a
person’s individual situation, the
researchers point out. “Whether
alcohol is going to be helpful
or harmful to you depends on
[your] baseline risk,” for diseases
affected by alcohol, says Sei Lee,
a geriatrician at the University
of California in San Francisco
who is the lead author of the
JAGS study. For instance, says
Oxford cancer epidemiologist
Valerie Beral, a co-author on the
JNCI study, middle-aged women
generally have a higher risk of
cancer than heart disease, so
alcohol may be more harmful
for them than for men or older
women, who are more prone to
heart disease.
The Oxford team did not directly
address whether alcohol affected
death rates—something the team
says it plans to do. Another future
step, Lee suggests, would be to
study other patient populations to
determine if the results apply to
women who don’t receive breast
cancer screenings.
For now, Lee says that he’ll
continue advising his patients to
follow U.S. government guidelines,
which state that an alcoholic
drink a day is probably OK for
most women. But the answer is
“not straightforward,” he admits.
Beral agrees: “There aren’t simple
messages about alcohol.”
—Lucas Laursen
CR | Page No. 9 | www.CRmagazine.org
