Researcher Yan Li of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, in Oakland, Calif., told WebMD, "It doesn't matter if you drink red wine or white wine. If you are a heavy drinker -- more than three drinks a day -- you will have an additional 30% risk of breast cancer."
The researchers conducted studies on more than 70,000 women in the Kaiser Permanente database from 1978 through 1985. The researchers then looked at whether the women had breast cancer by 2004.
Just over 2,800 of the women did get breast cancer. Women who drank one or two drinks a day had a 10 percent higher chance of breast cancer than women who drank less than a drink a day.
Though recent studies have linked alcohol consumption to a lower risk of heart disease, scientists still caution women that this is not true.
Li reported the findings in a presentation to the European Cancer Conference, held Sept. 23-27 in Barcelona, Spain.
The same study also found smoking a pack of cigarettes or more per day is related to a similar 30 percent increased risk of breast cancer.
