Lifetime total and beverage specific--alcohol intake and prostate cancer risk: a case-control study.
BACKGROUND
We investigated lifetime alcohol consumption and prostate cancer risk in a case-control study conducted in Buffalo, NY (1998-2001).


METHODS
The study included 88 men, aged 45 to 85 years with incident, histologically-confirmed prostate cancer and 272 controls. We conducted extensive in-person interviews regarding lifetime alcohol consumption and other epidemiologic data.


RESULTS
Prostate cancer risk was not associated with lifetime intake of total and beverage specific ethanol. In addition we found no association with number of drinks per day (average drinks per day over the lifetime) or drinks per drinking day (average drinks per day on drinking days only over the lifetime). However, we observed an inverse association with the total number of drinking years. Men in the lowest tertile of total drinking years had a two-fold prostate cancer risk than men in the highest tertile (OR 2.16, 95% CI 0.98-4.78, p for trend <0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that alcohol intake distribution across lifetime may play a more important role in prostate cancer etiology than total lifetime consumption.
Barba
Maddalena
M
Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA. mbarba@buffalo.edu
McCann
Susan E
SE
Schünemann
Holger J
HJ
Stranges
Saverio
S
Fuhrman
Barbara
B
De Placido
Sabino
S
Carruba
Giuseppe
G
Freudenheim
Jo L
JL
Trevisan
Maurizio
M
Russell
Marcia
M
Nochajski
Tom
T
Muti
Paola
P