Coffee protects postmenopausal Japanese women against endometrial cancer

Researchers examined the association between coffee consumption and endometrial endometrioid adenocarcinoma in a case-control study. Drinking coffee reduces the risk for endometrial cancer in Japanese postmenopausal women, study findings indicate.

Researchers surveyed 321 women younger than 80 years of age and found that those with coffee consumption in the highest tertile had a 60 percent lower risk for developing endometrial endometrioid adenocarinoma (EEA) than women in the lowest tertile of coffee consumption.Women in the highest tertile drank at least two cups of coffee a day, whereas those in the middle and lowest tertile drank five to six cups per week and no more than four cups per week, respectively.

Toshimitsu Koizumi and colleagues, from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Sendai, Japan, enrolled 107 women with a pathologic diagnosis of EEA from two medical centers.These women were each compared with two women without EEA, matched for age and area of residence, who were taking part in a cancer-screening program.
All of the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire assessing their dietary and beverage consumption, and reproductive history. After adjusting for potential confounders, Koizumi et al found that, overall, women in the highest tertile of coffee consumption had an odds ratio (OR) for EEA of 0.4 and those in the middle tertile had an OR of 0.6, relative to women in the lowest tertile. Further analysis showed that the association between EEA risk and coffee consumption was significant for postmenopausal, but not for premenopausal, women.

“This study thus revealed an inverse dose-response relationship between coffee consumption and the risk of EEA, and its strong association in postmenopausal women but not in premenopausal women,” the researchers concluded.