Coffee and endometrial cancer

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological tumor in women in developed countries after breast, colon and/or lung cancer.

An epidemiological study carried out by the international team of Marta Crous-Bou, a researcher at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), has evaluated the association between coffee consumption and the risk of suffering from a endometrial cancer.

In the study, which has been carried out combining data from women from all over the world included in the consortium ‘E2C2, Epidemiology of Endometrial Cancer Consortium’, it has been observed that coffee consumption has a protective effect against the risk of suffering from cancer of the endometrium This finding could have an important impact as coffee is the most consumed beverage in the world after water and could have a beneficial effect on global public health.

To carry out this study, the largest to date, data from more than 40,000 women have been combined, some with endometrial cancer (about 12,000) and the rest free of the disease. In addition, some specific risk factors for the disease have been taken into account, such as obesity, the risk of diabetes, tobacco use or the age of menopause, among others.

From here, it was observed that those women who drank coffee had approximately a 10% lower risk of endometrial cancer. In addition, it was also possible to see that this decrease was even more important with women who were overweight or obese, which is the main risk factor for suffering from this disease, and in which the beneficial effect of coffee and its compounds is more evident.

Marta Crous-Bou. (Photo: IDIBELL)

Although there were already some previous studies that suggested that this association could exist, it had never been explored with a study that includes such a large cohort and takes into account so many risk factors.

“The biological mechanisms behind this association are not known for sure, but we think that they may have to do with certain components of coffee, such as polyphenols or other antioxidants. These could be capable of reducing the levels of estrogen or insulin, two hormones clearly involved in the origin of this tumour” says Marta Crous-Bou.

And he adds “these results could open the door to conducting clinical trials with supplements containing these compounds and being able to carry out small interventions in specific groups of patients with a higher risk of suffering from the disease in order to observe its evolution. Confirming the beneficial effect of coffee compounds could have an important impact on Public Health since it is a widely consumed beverage everywhere”. (Source: IDIBELL)