Coffee May Protect Against Endometrial Cancer

Long-term coffee consumption may be linked with a decreased risk for endometrial cancer, according to new findings.

Edward Giovannucci, MD, ScD, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, MA, USA), reported that coffee is emerging as a protective agent in cancers that are linked to obesity, estrogen, and insulin. “Coffee has already been shown to be protective against diabetes due to its effect on insulin,” said Dr. Giovannucci, a senior investigator on the study. “So we hypothesized that we’d see a reduction in some cancers as well.”

Dr. Giovannucci, working with Youjin Je, a doctoral candidate in his lab, and colleagues tracked cumulative coffee intake in relation to endometrial cancer in 67,470 women who enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study. During the course of 26 years of follow-up, researchers documented 672 cases of endometrial cancer. Drinking more than four cups of coffee per day was associated with a 25% reduced risk for endometrial cancer. Drinking between two and three cups per day was linked with a 7% reduced risk. A comparable link was seen in decaffeinated coffee, where drinking more than two cups per day was associated with a 22% reduced risk for endometrial cancer. Dr. Giovannucci states that he hopes this study will lead to additional inquiries about the effect of coffee on cancer because in this and similar studies, coffee intake is self-selected and not randomized.
“Coffee has long been linked with smoking, and if you drink coffee and smoke, the positive effects of coffee are going to be more than outweighed by the negative effects of smoking,” said Dr. Giovannucci. “However, laboratory testing has found that coffee has much more antioxidants than most vegetables and fruits.”

The study’s findings were published online on November 22, 2011, in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

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