More recently, Terry and colleagues (2006) compared more than 1,000 breast cancer patients with more than 1,100 control subjects. These researchers found that among women homozygous for ADH1C*1, a lifetime consumption of 15 to 30 g alcohol per day (which corresponds to approximately one to two drinks per day) was associated with a two-fold increase in breast cancer risk (95% CI 1.1–3.5). However, this increase in risk was not seen in women with the same alcohol consumption who were heterozygous or homozygous for ADH1C*2. Again, the increase in risk was particularly pronounced among premenopausal women. In a European study, Coutelle and colleagues (2004) reported that the ADH1C*1 allele was significantly more common in moderate alcohol consumers with breast cancer than in age-matched control subjects without cancer. Furthermore, women homozygous for ADH1C*1 had a 1.8-times greater risk of breast cancer than women with other allele combinations (95% CI 1.4–2.3).
