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Alcohol consumption and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a cohort of older women
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  • Regular Article
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  • Published: 11 June 1999

Alcohol consumption and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a cohort of older women

  • B C-H Chiu1 nAff7,
  • J R Cerhan1,
  • S M Gapstur2,
  • T A Sellers3,
  • W Zheng4,
  • C T Lutz5,
  • R B Wallace1 &
  • …
  • J D Potter6 

British Journal of Cancer volume 80, pages 1476–1482 (1999)Cite this article

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Summary

We investigated the relation of alcohol consumption to risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) in a cohort of 35 156 lowa women aged 55–69 years who participated in the lowa Women’s Health Study in 1986. Alcohol consumption at baseline was obtained using a mailed questionnaire. During the 9-year follow-up period, 143 incident cases of NHL were identified. Higher alcohol consumption was significantly associated with a decreased risk of NHL (P-trend = 0.03). Compared to non-drinkers, multivariate-adjusted relative risks (RRs) were decreased for women with intake of ≤ 3.4 g day–1 (RR = 0.78; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.51–1.21) and > 3.4 g day–1 (RR = 0.59; 0.36–0.97). The inverse association could not be attributed to one particular type of alcoholic beverage, although red wine (RR = 0.21 for > 2 glasses per month vs non-drinker; 0.05–0.86; P-trend = 0.02) has the most distinct effect. The apparent protective effect was universal regardless of specific NHL grade or Working Formulation subtype, but was most pronounced for nodal NHL (RR = 0.48; 0.26–0.90; P-trend = 0.01) and low-grade NHL (RR = 0.52; 0.21–1.26; P-trend = 0.05). These data suggest that moderate alcohol consumption is inversely associated with the risk of NHL in older women and the amount of alcohol consumed, rather than the type of alcoholic beverages, appears to be the main effect determinant.

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  • 16 November 2011

    This paper was modified 12 months after initial publication to switch to Creative Commons licence terms, as noted at publication

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Author notes

  1. B C-H Chiu

    Present address: Department of Preventive and Societal Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, 68198, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, The University of lowa College of Medicine, lowa City, 52242, IA, USA

    B C-H Chiu, J R Cerhan & R B Wallace

  2. Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, 60611, IL, USA

    S M Gapstur

  3. Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, 55905, MN, USA

    T A Sellers

  4. School of Public Health and Cancer Center, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 29203, SC, USA

    W Zheng

  5. Department of Pathology, The University of lowa College of Medicine, lowa City, 52240, IA, USA

    C T Lutz

  6. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, 98104, WA, USA

    J D Potter

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From twelve months after its original publication, this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

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Chiu, BH., Cerhan, J., Gapstur, S. et al. Alcohol consumption and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a cohort of older women. Br J Cancer 80, 1476–1482 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690547

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  • Received: 20 October 1998

  • Revised: 27 November 1998

  • Accepted: 02 December 1998

  • Published: 11 June 1999

  • Issue date: July 1999

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690547

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Keywords

  • lymphoma
  • alcohol
  • non-Hodgkin
  • cohort study

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