Two new studies on breast cancer have just been concluded and while one said that women who know they carry a gene that puts them at higher risk of breast cancer tend to opt for preventive mastectomy, the second said consumption of any alcohol including red or white wine increases the risk of breast cancer.

The first study was conducted by researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and they studied women who were found with a mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, which is known to elevate a woman's risk of breast cancer.

They researchers said that about two-thirds of women who tested positive for the BRCA mutation said that a preventive mastectomy was the most effective way to prevent breast cancer from developing or reduce their worry about the disease.

Out of the women who tested negative for the gene mutation, 40 % saw surgery as the best preventive option and only a third thought the procedure was the best way to alleviate their worry about having breast cancer.

They reported that 81 % of the women who said preventive mastectomy was the best way to reduce cancer risk ended up having the procedure after testing positive while
84.2% had the surgery if they viewed it as the only way to reduce worry about possible breast cancer.

In the April 15 issue of Cancer the authors wrote, "Health care providers and genetic counselors must take this into account when assessing a woman's needs at the time of genetic testing and results disclosure."

The second study was undertaken by Polly A. Newcomb of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, who led the research and her team and published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.

Earlier research had shown that women who drank alcohol had a slightly raised risk of breast cancer as compared to non-drinkers and the heavier the drinking the higher the risk. Studies on animals and a few human studies however showed reed wine to not carry as much risk as other alcohol and perhaps even lending a protective effect. The researchers examined at 6,327 women with breast cancer and 7,558 women who did not have a cancer diagnosis. They found that the risk went up with the amount of alcohol consumed irrespective of whether it was red wine, beer or liquor.

They said the heaviest drinkers, women who reported having 14 or more drinks a week, were 24 % more likely to develop breast cancer than nondrinkers. Newcomb and her colleagues found that lighter drinkers who consumed about a drink or two a day (7 to 13.9 drinks per week) were 11 % more likely to develop breast cancer than women who didn't drink at all, but there was no greater breast cancer risk when alcohol intake was less than four drinks per week. And neither white wine nor red wine drinkers had a lower risk of breast cancer than nondrinkers

"If a woman chooses red wine, she should do so because she likes the flavor, not because she thinks doing so will reduce her breast cancer risk," said Newcomb. "It might be good for other things, but it definitely is not conferring any protection against breast cancer."

"We found that recent alcohol consumption was very relevant in terms of determining breast cancer risk, so reducing alcohol consumption or eliminating it probably is going to impact upon a woman's future risk of the disease," Newcomb said. "This is something that you can do today to reduce your future risk."