The issue of breast cancer has been in the news of late, after the shock disclosure that Angelina Jolie has had a pre-emptive double mastectomy due to her concerns about the disease.

However, breast cancer has also made the headlines recently in relation to coffee and its impact on the disease.

The article appeared in the Oncology Nurse Advisor and reported on the relationship between the return of breast cancer and the consumption of coffee.

The matter was studied at Lund University in Sweden and the research project involved some 600 breast cancer patients over a five year period.

It was discovered in the study that those who consumed coffee had a decreased risk of the recurrence of breast cancer, when the patients took the drug tamoxifen.

What were the statistics?

The recurrence of breast cancer was less than half the rate in those who took the drug, plus two or more daily cups of coffee, when compared with those who didn’t consume coffee with their drug.

Why the difference in the results?

More studies are required to address various lifestyle issues and to discover more detail about the effects of coffee.

Some think that the coffee might make the tamoxifen more efficient.

More research is needed.

But in the first instance, it’s interesting, isn’t it?