研究显示咖啡可以降低卵巢癌发病风险
美国学者最近在癌症杂志发表的研究显示：咖啡可以降低女性罹患卵巢癌的风险尤其是对从未服用过避孕药或绝经后未服用激素的女性，此种益处更大。
据估计全世界范围内每年约有超过190000的卵巢癌新发病例，且好发于50岁以上的女性。在发现之前，患者常无症状或症状不明显。他们对超过121000名30到35岁女性的问卷调查数据进行分析，显示女性摄入总的咖啡量越大，卵巢癌发病风险就越低。饮用脱去咖啡碱的咖啡饮料对发病风险无明显益处。虽然之前的研究也显示咖啡和癌症发病率降低相关，但是研究者说还需进一步的工作来明确咖啡对卵巢癌保护作用的生物学机制。他们认为：咖啡可能降低女性尤其是未使用过外源性激素女性罹患卵巢癌发病风险，此发现非常有意义值得进一步研究，如可以对降低的机制进行研究。
原文
Drinking coffee may lower ovarian cancer risk: study
LONDON (Reuters) - Caffeine appears to lower a woman's chances of developing ovarian cancer, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday, while smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol do not.
The benefit for caffeine drinkers also seemed strongest for women who had never used oral contraceptives or postmenopausal hormones, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer.
"With regard to caffeine and caffeine-containing beverages, we generally observed a lower risk of ovarian cancer with increasing intake," Shelley Tworoger of Harvard Medical School and colleagues wrote.
Worldwide there are more than an estimated 190,000 new cases of ovarian cancer each year, a disease more common after age 50. Women often have mild or no symptoms until the disease has progressed.
Previous studies have linked caffeine consumption with lowered cancer risk but the researchers said further work was needed to determine the biological reasons driving the protective benefits they found in ovarian cancer.
The team examined data taken from health questionnaires of more than 121,000 women aged 30-35 as part of a Utah study.
The researchers found no significant link between current or past smoking or drinking and overall ovarian cancer risk, though cigarettes seemed to raise the likelihood of one rare form of the disease.
Risk also appeared to decline the more total caffeine and coffee a woman consumed, the study found. Decaffeinated coffee had no apparent benefit.
"The possibility that caffeine may reduce ovarian cancer risk, particularly for women who have not previously used exogenous hormones, is intriguing and warrants further study, including an evaluation of possible biological mechanisms," the researchers wrote.
