ALERT: Coffee Drinking Does Not Raise Breast Cancer Risk

By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage TodayPublished: October 13, 2008Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

BOSTON, Oct. 13 -- Several cups of coffee a day do not seem to pose an overall breast cancer risk, researchers here found in a large cohort study, confirming other research.

Breast cancer risk was not significantly elevated overall by drinking four or more cups of coffee a day (relative risk 1.08, 95% confidence interval 0.89 to 1.30), reported Shumin M. Zhang, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard, and colleagues in the Oct. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Nor did women with even the highest level of caffeine consumption appear to be at elevated risk (RR 1.02, 95% CI 0.84 to 1.22) in the analysis of the prospective Women's Health Study.
But as in some previous studies, high caffeine consumption appeared to increase risk for women with a history of benign breast disease. Risk was also elevated for developing hormone receptor-negative or larger tumors.
The researchers cautioned though, that these subgroup findings may be due to chance.

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