To Drink Or Not to Drink!

Public Archive
1

I am a little sick and tired of reading all the reasoning behind bc, I have just seen the latest NHS ad with regard to alcohol where they specifically mention that drinking more that 2 glasses of wine can increase chances of getting bc

I do understand that there are factors that can contribute to any illness but I always feel so blimin guilty when I read these things.

Can anyone clarify once and for all the reason why drink is linked to bc, I have always assumed that it was do to with putting weight on and the link then to oestrogen?
x

2

I always assumed it was because of the high sugars in alcohol and because cancer loves sugar.

Sarahlousie xx

3

I have never drunk alcohol & I have had BC twice so don’t believe all you read!

lbx157

4

This is from the CRUK website

"Oestrogen and hormones

Alcohol can increase the levels of some hormones, such as oestrogen, testosterone and insulin. Unusually high levels of oestrogen increase the risk of breast cancer"

melxx

5

Like lbx I am TT and have/had breast cancer… the link just isn’t that simple! My onc and BCN from day one said ‘everything in moderation’ and included alcohol in what they referred to. If you enjoy a glass of wine or lager or whatever, then have one… just don’t go overboard. And don’t spend life being guilty about what you can’t change, just move forward making the best calls for you here and now.

6

hi
if we belive everything we hear and read we wouldnt do anything
i am a great believer in (right or wrong ) we all have some form of cancer lurking we just need something to trigger it
all you read these days is this is bad for you that is bad for you and yet generations have done it for years breast milk for instance is one of the latest ! my personal thing is you get one chance of life enjoy it while you can just do things in moderation and what will be will be not matter what !
i drink in moderation friday evening and sunday evening i never get colds bugs etc and yet I got a rare breast cancer ?
liz

7

Absolutely agreed RevCat. We will each tread our own line on this one but as a statistician in the real world, can I just say it really is complicated.

If anyone is interested in that side of things the complications are:

There is a multivariate relationship between bc and its many causes (that is the different factors interact with each other as well as being risks in their own right so alcohol and stress may both be risk factors for bc, but if a glass of wine brings down your stress levels it might actually minimise the effect of something else whilst being a risk factor in itself). Excuse the explanation, probably clear as mud…

Also, we each respond differently to each of the risk factors, because we are different in age, weight, genetics, history etc
On an entirely unrelated medical issue when I had a pregnancy condition a medical doctor once said to me, knowing my background, it isn’t as simple as finding that something has a statistical relationship ie: this condition can cause stillbirths, but that I would need to have a statistically valid number of children myself (50!!) before anyone could say whether I as an individual, not a sample of the population, would react to that condition in a particular way.

Then each of the risk factors might interact with other risk factors differently in different ones of us who respond differently to those combinations and so it goes on building levels of statistical complexity.

I will admit that, whether or not well intended, some of the over-simplistic reporting of research into triggers of bc winds me up as it makes it sound as simple as “you must not do x” or “y causes bc” but what has actually been found is way more complicated and hedged with many more ifs and buts than that.

End of stats 101 lecture…

When I asked my lovely surgeon whether I should stop drinking caffeine, or alcohol or whether the fact that my mum had bc before a certain age or I once dropped a plank on exactly the place I got my bc had contributed to my getting it, he replied that it was quite likely also just chance that I was the one in seven who got this and that, whilst it may well help to cut out dairy, alcohol or whatever, if this all added to my stress levels, it might be doing me more harm than good.

So, a statistical explanation for the “all things in moderation” approach which I tend to take but also, if others find that cutting out something or things which are stated to be a risk factor helps them to feel that they have some control over bc then it may help them too.

Sadly, it isn’t a simple illness, there are no simple answers and so we each have to do what feels right and best for us xx

8

Hi Ladies
I’ve fallen out big style with my son because as he visited me in hospital for a non related bc issue I was told that all my problems were self inflicted and he had no sympathy with me. Yes I have drunk wine, occassionally far too much. But I’ve also worked full time in a very stressful job for 25 years, had a major trauma at work that very few people have had to endure and picked up the role of bread winner when my husband decided work was making him ill.
My guilt as you can imagine knows no boundries, afterall I could have saved my son all the worry and the stress. Did I say he’s been to Afghanistan now eight times with his job in the last six years.
Profile name sort of gives it away.
If it was all down to alcohol the many non drinkers of the world, for whatever reason, would be bc free.
I just think when you look for your keys you find all sorts of stuff you wern’t looking for and sometimes you find your keys.
Sorry this is a bit of a rant.
So everything in moderation
Regards
Chinook xxx

9

I a,
M enjoying a glass of wine as I type. My first for quite a few weeks. And why not?!

10

Pressed submit before I meant to,sorry.
Bc cannot be self inflicted how awful to hear that. I have never smoked, didn’t drink much, a few glasses of wine a week, and before dx was super fit working out 3 times a week. Not overweight etc etc.
So go figure 8-(

11

Interesting reading on Breast Cancer Recurrence and alcohol, published in 2010 in the US.
jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/29/4410.full.pdf

12

As I said, all things in moderation and each to their own. Apparently if I drink beer rather than wine that could be better and if I’m post-menopausal or overweight then the effects of wine might be worse. These are “inferential” statistics and we can “infer” rather too much from them which I tend to think just worries rather than helps people, particularly as other determinants such as stress or “bad luck” may also factor into the regressions.

I am off for a well-earned glass of wine… I drink but moderately, never smoked, am fairly young, fit and have no apparent genetic link but I still got bc xx

13

(1)Chinook, sorry, but to be so blunt, your son should be ashamed of himself. Blaming you for causing your own Breast Cancer, when nobody knows what causes it is absolutely disgusting in my view. He should be supporting you, rather than judging you.
(2) The main reason I have replied to this thread is that it got me mulling over the thinking behind statistics like these. It made me wonder if this tendency scientists seem to have, of trying to quantify everything, and look for patterns in cancer is really achieving anything. It seems to me, that cancer strikes, re-strikes, and behaves on a very random basis (for example on another thread, two women talk about recurrence after 17 and 19 years respectively), so wouldn’t it be more useful to try and work out why it behaves in this way. I just think that if scientists are going to crack cancer, it will involve a real paradigm shift.

14

Recently attended an open evening in our Breast Unit hosted by the local breast surgeons & multidisciplinary team getting an update on current treatment standards, future developments, nutrition etc. The consultant in charge concluded his presentation saying that patients got the best treatment available to give them the best possible outcome and that he wanted patients to see that based on all current evidence patients had, what he called “their bit” to do as well to achieve and support this by adhering to treatment plans and take into consideration certain personal lifestyle choices in respect of alcohol, weight & exercise, dividing this into categories of “the risk factors you cannot change” & “lifestyle related risks”. I agree, lemongrove, more research is needed to understand recurrence&metastasis. I feel very unsettled thinking that my medical team may scrutinise my lifestyle should I have a recurrence!

15

If the causes of BC were as straight-forward as this never-ending list of risk factors would have us believe, we would have had a cure years ago. It seems to me that research is currently at a stage where the more we learn, the less we understand. A nutritionist/dietician at my local cancer centre told me “everything in moderation” and that’s what I go with. After that, in my opinion, it’s just down to luck. But each of us has to do what feels right for us.

Angelfalls xx

16

Mmmm - so maybe my liking of red-wine might explain why I’ve succumbed to breast cancer, but because it is good for the heart then this also explains why my MUGA scan readings for herceptin are well into the high 80’s which I am told is excellent!

Sorry for being so cynical, but if life was only black and white then it would be easy to pin-point the cause of breast cancer, but I’m afraid that life is in shades of grey, and unfortunately some of us draw the short straw and end up with breast cancer.

We are not single celled organisms, but complex beings living in a highly complex world.

17

Well said Mazzalou! We start with the genes we inherited ,we grow up in an environment over which we have very little control, we make lifestyle choices without knowing the consequences and we are subject to stresses over which we have no control. I’ve spent my life trying to avoid carcinogens but I’m a sugar addict since childhood and have drunk my fair share of wine since I retired. Millions of women do the things we have all done and never get cancer. No-one in all the generations of my family I can trace has ever had breast cancer and there are plenty of women on both sides of my family tree.
Whatever choices we all make in the future, life is for living. I’m going to eat more healthily and drink little from now on. If I ever have energy again I’ll exercise a bit more! But I’ll also try to enjoy every day from now on and worry less about things I can’t change.
Onwards and upwards.
Kathleen

18

And, well said to you too, Kathleen.

Yes, life is for living and for enjoying. We can’t change our past, but we can make some changes to our current and future lifestyles, but without becoming paranoid. We can all try and avoid a reoccurance, only to find that we succumb to something else that life decides to throw at us. Life is full of ifs, ands & buts, but we still get out of bed in the morning and run the risk of a star falling out of the sky onto our heads, now don’t we?

Just a word of advice though, try and catch the star before it hits you and make a wish - it could be your lucky star!!!

Cheers to you all

Mazzalou xxx

19

This is always a difficult one isn’t it? On the one hand I like to know if there is anything I can do, however small, to reduce the risk of recurrance. On the other hand, it can lead others to become judgemental when really there isn’t a cause and effect with most lifestyle things only a statistical increased risk. Also it does feel like a burden of responsibility at times - don’t do this, do that and then don’t get stressed with it all.

I am virtually teetotal but have a drink if I want. I gave up drinking during chemo as I couldn’t face it (or much else come to that) and afterwards it tasted so strong that I’ve never gone back to regular drinking.

I have relaxed my attitude quite a bit in the last couple of months to all things drink and diet related though. The reason is that I found worrying about every single thing I ate or drank was increasing my stress and anxiety. So somehow it’s finding a balance between not going over the top with the things but not making life so restrictive it takes away all pleasure.
Elinda x

20

I too am almost TT, very occasionally drink alcohol and have been like that for years and years.
I think it is very easy to get caught up in the “blame game”.
Alcohol was not the cause of my bc, therefore do I start to beat myself up about my liking for sugary snacks, polishing my house, wearing deodorant, breastfeeding my children, the list goes on and on…
As already stated moderation is the key word not just regarding bc but for everything in life! There has to be some fun.
I absolutely refuse to blame myself for my bc, I was just like many others, unlucky xx