At the age of 46 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019 I had no idea that the reckless binge drinking behaviour I’d started as a teenager in the 1980s and continued during my adult life could have increased my breast cancer risk significantly.
Mistakenly, I was under the impression that it was only people with a strong family history of breast cancer that were at risk but what I discovered once I started looking into it was quite alarming.
Not only did I discover 90 per cent of breast cancer cases don’t have a genetic link but as I started to delve into the global research regarding alcohol consumption and breast cancer I became shocked to uncover information that I’d never heard before.
I more than anybody felt compelled to find out more. As a self-confessed binge drinker of 30 plus years I’d tried to moderate and control my relationship with alcohol unsuccessfully until the beginning of July 2019, a month before I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was when I had my last drink.
I can’t be 100% sure that drinking alcohol caused my breast cancer but it feels empowering to know that I was engaging in a significantly risky behaviour for many years that was statistically increasing my overall breast cancer risk with each drink, each day, each year.
As I continued to uncover more research I wondered why I had never come across a specific public health awareness campaign in Australia dedicated to the scientifically proven links between alcohol consumption and breast cancer? Yes, it was mentioned in broader alcohol and cancer campaigns but I couldn’t find anything more than that.
To top it off, I was increasingly frustrated by the high visibility of alcohol companies and brands associated with breast cancer awareness and fundraising campaigns. How could this be when there was no accountability taken or information provided about the links between alcohol and breast cancer?
Anecdotally, I’ve had many conversations with women of all ages during the past two years and most of them had no idea about how a moderate level of weekly drinking could increase their breast cancer risk.
So I’m on a mission to start spreading the word. I want people to know the real risks. I want less women being diagnosed with breast cancer. I want less women to die.
There is a fabulous campaign in America called Drink Less For your Breasts and to date I haven’t found a more compelling one-stop shop for the most up to date statistics and research on this topic, some of which I’ve outlined below.
Alcohol messes with your hormones and this can cause cancer
Drinking increases levels of circulating estrogen in the body, which can encourage breast cells to grow and multiply out of control, stimulating cancer growth.
Alcohol breaks down into acetaldehyde, a carcinogen.
When you drink alcohol, your body breaks it down into an even more toxic substance called acetaldehyde, a cancer-causing agent that damages your DNA and keeps your body from repairing the damage. When a cell’s DNA is damaged, it’s more likely to start growing out of control and become cancerous.
Drinking any amount of alcohol increases your breast cancer risk
Many studies have looked at drinking and breast cancer risk and they’ve ALL found that the risk of breast cancer increases as alcohol consumption increases.
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.
In Australia, its estimated that up to 1 in 10 breast cancer diagnoses (source: ADF website, Sept 2022) are related to drinking, which is around 2,000 women each year.
Why don’t we hear more about this given a reduction in drinking should be a crucial component of a breast cancer prevention strategy?
This must change. We need to get regular and repeated access to this information. A one-off campaign is not enough. This needs to become mainstream. It needs to come through GPS, trusted health providers, our mothers and fathers, our friends, our schools, our employers, our government and our role models.
It’s time to call this elephant out now. It will save lives.