Factors Associated with Women's Unwillingness to Decrease Alcohol Intake to Decrease Breast Cancer Risk

OBJECTIVE

Alcohol intake is a known risk factor for breast cancer. National organizations recommend that women consume no more than one serving of alcohol per day, if at all; however, many women exceed this recommendation, and some are unwilling to decrease consumption. Our study sought to identify factors associated with women's unwillingness to decrease their alcohol intake to decrease their breast cancer risk.

METHODS

942 women in a screening mammography cohort were asked questions about their demographics, personal and family health history, lifestyle factors, and willingness/unwillingness to decrease alcohol intake to decrease their breast cancer risk. Univariate and multivariate analyzes of their responses were performed.

RESULTS

13.2% of women in our cohort indicated they were unwilling to decrease their alcohol intake to reduce their breast cancer risk. After adjusting for potential confounders, women who were 60 years and older were more than twice as unwilling to decrease their alcohol intake compared to their younger counterparts (P = .0002). Women who had an annual household income of more than $200,000 were 1.75 times more unwilling to decrease their alcohol intake compared to their less affluent counterparts (P = .033). Unwillingness was not significantly associated with race/ethnicity, education, having a first-degree family member with cancer, health perception, breast cancer risk perception, or BMI.

CONCLUSIONS

Levels of unwillingness to decrease alcohol intake differed by age and household income. An opportunity is present to potentially decrease breast cancer risk in the community by educating women, especially older and more affluent women, about alcohol as a risk factor for breast cancer and the importance of limiting one's alcohol intake.

Common adiponectin gene variants show different effects on risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes in European subjects

Alterations in the secretion of adipokines may explain the link between obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and coronary artery disease (CAD). These conditions have been associated with variation in the adiponectin gene, although evidence for this relationship has been variable, with differences found even in similar samples. This study aims to clarify these inconsistencies by determining the impact of identified adiponectin gene (ADIPOQ) variants (-11391G>A,-1377C>G[promoter] and +45T>G[exon 2] and +276G>T[intron 2]) on the prospective risk of CAD and T2DM in healthy men, and on adverse metabolic markers, in myocardial infarct survivors and controls from different parts of Europe. The hazard ratio for cardiovascular disease varied across the -11391GG/GA/AA(p = 0.03) and -11371CC/CG/GG(p = 0.05) genotypes only. In contrast, only the +45T>G variant (3.80[1.76-8.24]) was associated with T2DM, while two haplotypes GCTT/GCGG (p < 0.05) and +276G>T(p = 0.01) increased risk in interaction with obesity. The variants were associated with a number of biomarkers in Southern but not Northern Europe (p = 0.01), despite no significant differences in allele or haplotype frequencies (p > 0.44). A risk haplotype could not be identified in either sample. Adiponectin gene variants are hence currently poor markers for the development of T2DM and CAD. Their influence on risk depends significantly on interactions that are not currently understood with either genetic variation elsewhere or the environment of the sample studied.