Coffee and breast cancer risk

OpenAlex English

We read with great interest the article by Nkondjock et al.1 regarding the coffee consumption and breast cancer risk among BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. They reported that among women with BRCA gene mutation, coffee consumption is unlikely to be harmful and that high levels of consumption may in fact be related to reduce breast cancer risk. The authors suggested that the potential role of coffee for prevention of breast cancer might be through estrogen metabolism. We want to mention recent finding that coffee may play a role in reducing breast cancer risk. Hypermethylation of DNA is a key epigenetic mechanism for silencing of various genes, including those encoding the tumor suppressor proteins, DNA repair enzymes, and receptors and is a common characteristic in tumor cells. Gene-specific hypermethylation is known to be associated with inactivation of various pathways involved in the tumorigenic process, including DNA repair, cell cycle regulation, inflammatory/stress response and apoptosis. Lee and Zhu demonstrated that caffeic acid, the key ingredient of coffee, inhibits DNA methylation in cultured MCF-7 and MAD-MB-231 human breast cancer cells.2 Moreover, one clinical study by Hayashi et al. showed that coffee potentates the effect of chemotherapy in solid metastatic tumors, including breast cancer. Taken all together, coffee may contribute to inhibition of breast cancer cells in many ways. Its intake as a preventive agent and/or concomitant use of it with chemotherapy in breast cancer should be further explored. Yours sincerely, Mauricio Z. Baptista, Kadri Altundag, Ozden Altundag.