Coffee Combats Breast Cancer Risk, Study

Drinking three to five cups of coffee everyday may expose you to a lower risk of heart attack, according to indianexpress.

Drink just two cups a day is also enough to reduce the growth of tumour and also the risk of its recurrence in women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The research was conducted by combining information about the patients' lifestyle as well as from 1,090 breast cancer patients, after studying breast cancer cells.

"The study shows that among the over 500 women treated with (the drug) tamoxifen, those who had drunk at least two cups of coffee a day had only half the risk of recurrence of those who drank less coffee or none at all," explained Ann Rosendahl, one of the researchers from Lund University in Sweden.

"The study also shows that those who drank at least two cups of coffee a day had smaller tumours and a lower proportion of hormone-dependent tumours. We saw that this was already the case at the time of diagnosis," Rosendahl noted.

However, the researchers also noted that breast cancer patients should not change their medicines for coffee, according to medicalnewstoday. "But if you like coffee and are also taking tamoxifen," add Rosendahl and Jernström, "there is no reason to stop drinking it. Just two cups a day is sufficient to make a difference."

Two compounds that were found in coffee were studied carefully---caffeine and caffeic acid.

"The breast cancer cells reacted to these substances, especially caffeine, with reduced cell division and increased cell death, especially in combination with tamoxifen," Rosendahl noted.

"This shows that these substances have an effect on the breast cancer cells and turn off signalling pathways that the cancer cells require to grow," Rosendahl said.

The study appeared in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.