Can coffee prevent breast cancer?

New research shows that women who drink coffee could be protecting themselves against an especially aggressive form of breast cancer.

Oestrogen-receptor negative is a tricky type of breast cancer where tumors do not react to the most commonly used drugs, leaving chemotherapy as the only treatment option.

A study from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm Sweden has recently discovered that women who regularly drink coffee have a lower occurrence rate of this type of breast cancer, than those women who do not drink coffee.

 In the study, 6,000 menopausal women were analyzed. The women who drank five or more cups a day had a 57% reduced risk of breast cancer compared with those who drank less than one cup a day.

  

The scientists concluded in the journal of Breast Cancer Research that "A high daily intake of coffee was found to be associated with a statistically significant decrease in oestrogen-receptor negative breast cancer among post-menopausal women."

When pressed for information, the Karolinska Institute experts said they suspected coffee contained compounds that affected different types of breast cancer in different ways. It is possible that the drink fuels oestrogen-receptor positive breast cancers but reduces the risk of oestrogen-receptor negative breast cancer, they said.

Although findings are not completely understood as of yet, this does match other findings where coffee has shown to reduce the risk of other types of cancer too, such as prostate and liver cancers.