Teen Girls Drinking May Increase Breast Cancer Risk
By admin on 2015-01-07

Teen girls drinking may link to breast cancer later in life, the USA Today reported on Saturday citing the latest research published online April 12 in the journal Pediatrics.

The study surveyed 6,899 women who had become participants when they were 9 to 15 years old.

Research found that girls who drank the most alcohol during their teen years were five times more likely to develop benign breast(BBD) disease as young adults than those who never drank or drank less than once a week.

And study co-author Catherine Berkey, a biostatistician at Harvard Medical School in Bostonfound that risk for benign breast disease rose along with the frequency of alcohol consumption.

While benign breast disease is known to boost the risk for breast cancer, Berkey said.

"Our study may suggest that teen drinking increases the risk for breast cancer, whether in all females or in those who go on to develop BBD, but longer-term follow-up is certainly required" to confirm it, Berkey said.

Teen years are a critical time for potential cancer-producing exposures, she said, because the mammary glands are undergoing rapid growth during that period.