Experts link coffee and breast cancer

Many recent studies have linked coffee with health benefits, such as experts in Florida and Japan recommending that three large cups a day could help to cure Alzheimer's.

However, new research in the US has shown that there may be a link between the beverage and breast cancer.

Specialists at Texan healthcare facility AgriLife Research claim that a compound called trigonelline, or trig, may be a factor in oestrogen-dependent breast cancer.

A team led by Dr Clinton Allred, a nutrition scientist, conducted research into how many cups a day should be the recommended daily intake but instead unearthed the new findings.

In a report published in the Journal of Nutrition, he said: "The important thing to get from this is that trig has the ability to act like a hormone. So there is a tie to cancer in the sense that we are looking at oestrogen-dependent cancer cells. But that doesn't suggest that it would actually cause the disease."

The expert added that trig is in coffee beans in differing amounts depending on the variety of coffee, though the two major types of bean both contain it.

"There's a history of these compounds in crops such as soy. Soy has a number of different compounds that actually can mimic estradiol in several disease states, some of which are good and some of which have the potential to be more deleterious-type effects."

Dr Allred said the main focus of the study was to look at how oestrogen protects against the development of colon cancer and the specialists found that it was indeed effective in this manner, though the breast cancer developments have raised concerns.

"It is way too early to say that drinking a cup of coffee is exposing you to something that is definitely going to be estrogenic. All we know is that there is a compound in there that can be estrogenic in our systems. That is really the take-home message," he concluded.

By Stephen Tate

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