Binge drinking 'increases breast cancer risk'

Young women who drink to excess are dramatically increasing their risk of suffering breast cancer, an expert warned yesterday.

Just one glass of wine a day is enough to raise the risk of contracting the disease by 9 per cent, the specialist said.

Regular binge-drinking pushes it up by 40 per cent, Professor Peter Boyle told the third European Breast Cancer Conference in Barcelona.

Binge drinking for women is defined as consuming more than six units for women.

Poor diet and lack of exercise among women in their 20s and 30s could exacerbate this risk and allow cancer to take hold.

Britain could be facing an epidemic of breast cancer fuelled by heavy drinking, Professor Boyle added.

His warning came as a separate study, published in the British Medical Journal, revealed the growing culture of binge-drinking among people in their 20s.

Half of all drinking by twnetysomethings is done in dangerous binge sessions, according to researchers at King's College, London

Nearly 90 per cent of that age group's drinking exceeds Government safe alcohol limits - 28 units of alcohol a week for men and 21 for women - found in the study involving 12,000 men and 20,000 women aged 20 to 80.

Cases of breast cancer in the UK now outstrip those of lung cancer but experts have been unable to say why figures are still rising.

Professor Boyle, who is professor of cancer epidemiology at Birmingham University, told the conference: 'Drinking a lot increases your risk of breast cancer. We can see that from all the studies we have conducted.

'In Europe and North America a large proportion of women are drinkers who are drinking much more than in the past.

'It is likely this will lead to an increase in breast cancer in the community in the future'

Professor Boyle used data from a major study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 to illustrate future trends in the incidence of breast cancer in Europe.

Worldwide, breast cancer cases are rising. There were 800,000 cases in 1990, but it is estimated one million cases were diagnosed in 2000.

Although better treatment has meant that deaths from breast cancer have fallen in recent years in the UK, the number of women getting the disease is still rising.

About 34,000 new cases are diagnosed here each year.

One of the suspected causes of the increase is women putting off motherhood until their late 30s and early 40s, because of the link with the hormone oestrogen.

Some scientific studies have suggested drinking large quantities of alcohol may also increase the risk by interfering with oestrogen levels.

Professor Boyle said alcohol could help cut the risk of heart disease, so the best thing to do would be to drink in moderation.

'One size does not fit all,' he said. 'If you have heart disease in the family and no breast cancer you may feel differently about alcohol than if you have breast cancer.'

But he said drinking habits in this country are dangerous because people are more likely to drink large amounts on single occasions.