Women who drink coffee can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.

Drinking alcohol does not increase women's risk of ovarian cancer, while drinking coffee helps fight it, according to a new study in the United States. At the same time, the researchers also found that most types of ovarian cancer had nothing to do with smoking. The findings are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Shirley Troug, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health, said: "it is too early to advise women to drink more coffee because the results need to be confirmed by other studies. However, some studies have found that smoking and drinking do not increase the risk of ovarian cancer. "

To find a link between smoking and the incidence of breast cancer, Troug's team looked at data from 1976 to 2004 and first analyzed the health of 110454 nurses; to understand the relationship between drinking and breast cancer, they analyzed the health of 80253 nurses. Results in the first analysis, Turog found 737 nurses with epithelial ovarian cancer (the most common type of ovarian cancer), while in the latter analysis, 507 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer were found.

Judging from the above data, there is no significant link between smoking or drinking and the incidence of breast cancer. But there is one exception. "smoking does increase the incidence of a type of breast cancer, a mucinous tumor of the ovary, but this kind of cancer is rare," Troug said. "

Turog's view is that if women do not take birth control or hormone drugs after menopause, the anti-cancer effect of coffee will be obvious. It is not clear why caffeine has an anti-cancer effect. The possible reason is that caffeine lowers estrogen levels, at least for postmenopausal women.

But Shelly Salvie Blank, executive director of the American Ovarian Cancer Union, which has suffered from breast cancer, says it is too early to recommend caffeine to treat breast cancer.

Troug's team's future plan is to figure out the relationship between caffeine and breast cancer, but for now, Troug says, "before you make any major lifestyle changes, you need to talk to your doctor." Since ovarian cancer is not as common as colds, women should ask their doctors about their chances of developing the cancer. "

Blank agrees with Troug, saying: "it's best to have a full understanding of the symptoms of ovarian cancer, your family history, your risk of ovarian cancer, and then talk to your doctor and ask him to give you some advice. especially if you think you might have breast cancer."

Among all cancers, the incidence of breast cancer ranks in the top eight, and the fatality rate ranks in the top five. Symptoms of breast cancer include edema, abdominal pain, frequent urination, difficulty eating or being full easily (even if you eat only a little food).

Scientists at HMO, the largest health maintenance group in the US, which studied 1063 pregnant women, found that people who drank more than two cups of coffee a day were more than twice as likely to miscarry as non-drinkers, and even if caffeine intake was low (less than 200mg), the risk of miscarriage increased by more than 40 per cent.