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Can coffee prevent breast cancer from reoccurring?

The link between coffee and breast cancer is one researchers have studied for some time now, and while some studies suggest that coffee intake may lower the chance of post-menopausal women getting breast cancer, other studies refute this claim.

Now, in the latest study of this kind, Swedish researchers found that breast cancer patients who drank two or more cups of coffee a day with the widely used breast cancer drug Tamoxifen reported less than half the rate of cancer reoccurring, compared with their Tamoxifen-taking counterparts who drank one cup or less.

The researchers, whose study was published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, followed over 600 breast cancer patients from southern Sweden for an average of five years. Approximately 300 of the patients took Tamoxifen.

“One theory we are working with is that coffee ‘activates’ Tamoxifen and makes it more efficient,” says researcher Maria Simonsson, a doctoral student in oncology at Lund University.

The researchers also claim caffeine has been shown to hamper the growth of cancer cells.

Previous research shows a link between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of other types of cancers.

For example, a 2012 study from Harvard Medical School found that women who drank more than three cups of coffee daily were 21 per cent less likely to develop the most common type of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma, compared with women who drank less than one cup of coffee per month.

For men, the risk was reduced by 10 per cent.

Other studies have linked coffee consumption with a lower risk of uterine cancer in women and lower risk of prostate cancer in men.