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. 2025 Nov 29:15598276251401194.
doi: 10.1177/15598276251401194. Online ahead of print.

Patient Awareness of Alcohol Consumption and Breast Cancer Risk

Dawn M Mussallem  1 , Elizabeth K Farkouh  2 , Taryn L Smith  3 , Jing Wang  4
Affiliations

Patient Awareness of Alcohol Consumption and Breast Cancer Risk

Dawn M Mussallem et al. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the proportion of female patients from Mayo Clinic Family Medicine and Community Internal Medicine clinics who are aware of alcohol use as a breast cancer (BC) risk factor.

Patients and methods: One thousand women aged 21 to 70 completed a survey collecting information on demographics, medical/family history, frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption, and other health behaviors. Participants were also asked to grade how likely certain factors were to increase lifetime BC risk.

Results: Most participants (844/990 [85.3%]) identified a family history of BC as a BC risk factor. In contrast, 48.4% (475/982) identified alcohol use as a BC risk factor. The remaining 51.6% (507/982) reported either they were not sure about alcohol consumption as a risk factor (341/982 [34.7%]), believed that there was no association (143/982 [14.6%]), or believed that alcohol consumption decreases the risk of BC (23/982 [2.3%]). In multivariable analyses, factors associated with awareness of alcohol consumption and BC risk included having never been pregnant (P = 0.048), more education (P < 0.001), and higher frequency of alcohol consumption in the past 12 months (P = 0.005).

Conclusion: Further education of patients and the public is needed to promote awareness of alcohol as a risk factor for BC.

Keywords: alcohol drinking; awareness; breast cancer; breast cancer prevention; healthy lifestyle.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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