Genetic Variations and the Coffee Connections
The Karolinska report is not the first Swedish study to find a connection between coffee consumption and decreased risk for breast cancer. A Lund University study of 2008 found that when women have genetic variations in a gene called CYP1A2, they have a two-thirds lower incidence of breast cancer. This jibes with the findings of a 2007 study published in the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention that found a three-fold decrease in breast cancer risk for women with CYP1A2 variations who drank coffee regularly. These researchers believed that caffeine was the key ingredient involved in breast cancer prevention, since caffeine is the only major ingredient found in coffee that is metabolized by the CYP1A2 gene. Possibly backing up this theory, a hospital-based study from 2006 found a 40% risk reduction for breast cancer among women who drank four or more cups of coffee per day - but the connection was found with caffeinated coffee only.
The same researchers responsible for the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention study had earlier discovered a reduction of breast cancer expression linked to coffee consumption in women carrying the BRCA-1 genetic mutation, which usually puts women at especially high risk of developing the disease. Their 2007 study was actually carried out on women with the BRCA-1 mutation, where CYP1A2 variations seem to have a particularly strong protective effect.
Boil, Don't Filter
In 2010, another Swedish study (they are interested because they drink a lot of coffee there) performed at Umea University found that when women drank four or more cups of Scandinavian boiled coffee per day they had a statistically-significant reduction in breast cancer risk in comparison to women who drank coffee less than once per day on average. Boiled coffee has up to 80 times more of the specific fatty acids naturally found in coffee beans than coffee that has been filtered, and it is worth noting that this study also found that women who drank filtered coffee did not show any reduction in their risk of breast cancer until they passed the age of 55. In fact, there appeared to be an increase in cancer risk for filtered coffee drinkers under the age of 49.
Possible Conclusions
There is some complexity to the overall picture here in that some of the studies that show a protective effect for coffee have involved only certain kinds of breast cancers and not breast cancer in general, and have involved only women from certain age groups. Also, there is uncertainty as to which coffee ingredients are playing the decisive role; while some evidence points to caffeine as the difference maker, others believe it is the antioxidants or phytoestrogens (plant-based nutrients that mimic estrogen and perhaps undermine its ability to fuel breast cancer development) in coffee that give it the ability to apparently prevent breast cancer in some instances. At the present time, the link between coffee consumption and breast cancer risk reduction is far from being well understood. But, at least for some breast cancer types in some women, that connection appears to be very real.
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