According to the American Cancer Society, the use of alcohol is linked to an increased risk of developing breast cancer. The risk increases with the amount of alcohol consumed. Compared with non-drinkers, women who consume 1 alcoholic drink a day have a very small increase in risk. Those who have 2 to 5 drinks daily have about 1½ times the risk of women who don’t drink alcohol.
However Medscape reports that several other studies on the effects of alcohol in regard to breast cancer have been inconclusive. A new study suggests that alcohol may not have any effect on whether you survive the disease. In fact, researchers found that being a moderate drinker may actually improve your chances of overall survival.
Excessive alcohol use is also known to increase the risk of developing several other types of cancer.
DCIS Redefined 
So, I’m really bad at math. This means that if I drank, say, four drinks a day, although I’d be in jail most likely :), my chances of getting breast cancer, if they’re ordinarily 10 percent would be…15 percent? This is really important to me since very time I drink a beer I feel I’m taking my life in my hands….But f we’re talking my chances (2 percent per dr. Lagios) times .5…I can stop feeling that? Thank you for the amazing website!!!!
Yes Laura, If the risk of getting breast cancer was 10 percent for women who didn’t drink, drinking 2 drinks/day would raise the risk to 15 percent.
Another 2011 JNCI study showed that losing weight, exercising and reducing drinking would lower your risk by somewhere between 1.6% and 4.1% if you did all 3. So as you can see just giving up drinking would only lower your risk by less than 4%. Reducing drinking should be viewed as just one small part of healthy lifestyle changes that can be used to reduce your chances of recurrence. In fact there may actually be health benefits in an occasional glass of red wine.
Sorry about typos! I’m on my iPad, not drunk! 🙂