Breast cancer surgeon and author of Breasts: The Owner's Manual, Dr. Kristi Funk, explains that stress-related behaviors like drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of breast cancer.
She recommends replacing your Zoom happy hour cocktail with a mocktail, and stresses that if you are going to drink alcohol, follow the American Cancer Society's recommendation to keep it to no more than one drink a day for women and two a day for men. FYI, one drink a day means a 12 oz beer, 5 oz of wine or 1.5 oz of hard liquor, according to the doc.
According to Dr. Funk, estrogen fuels 80% of breast cancers. The doctor says that alcohol can be a carcinogen because it impairs the immune system and it elevates estrogen levels.
She breaks down the science in greater detail, explaining that "when you drink, you inactivate MTHFR. It's an enzyme that converts folate in your leafy greens into methylfolate, which runs around and fixes DNA when it mutates. So you drink, you knock out that enzyme and now you no longer have your babysitter to watch the DNA as it divides."
If you do drink, Dr. Funk recommends a supplement she created, "Cosmo Companion," to help minimize the effects of alcohol. You can get the supplement from Pink Lotus, Dr. Funk's women's health organization.
The supplement is intended "to provide all the methylfolate you need, in addition to some super botanicals that protect your liver as it detoxes alcohol, and it helps metabolize all that sugar," Dr. Funk claims.
