Coffee Drinking May Reduce Risk Of Endometrial Cancer In Women

The International Journal of Cancer has reported that drinking coffee may decrease the risk of a woman getting endometrial cancer. In a population-based study cohort study the Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, The National Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Intstitutet, Stockholm, Sweden, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

Insulin resistance has been linked to endometrial cancer and now coffee drinking has been reported to have beneficial effects on insulin resistance. Only 2 prospective studies, with a small number of cases, have looked at this subject. The current study used data from the Swedish Mammography Cohort, a population-based prospective cohort study of 60,634 women was used.

Over a period of 17.6 years the data showed that 677 participants were diagnosed with endometrial cancer, an adenocarcinoma. Using Cox proportional hazards models the analysis showed that each additional cup (200 g) of coffee per day was associated with a rate ratio (RR) of 0.90 and for 4 or more cups of coffee per day the RR was 0.75 when compared with those who drank 1 cup or less. Obesity appears to be a correlating factor, with a respective risk reduction of 12% and 20% for every cup of coffee, but was not observed among normal-weight women. There was a statistically significant interaction between coffee consumption and body mass index (p_interaction < 0.001). These data indicate that coffee consumption may be associated with decreased risk of endometrial cancer, especially among women with excessive body weight.

More study is needed but the results are a major public health and womens’ health finding.