While many women make their way to the bars this weekend, some may not be aware of the added health consequences drinking alcohol may present.

Females who drink 14 or more alcoholic beverages per week increase their risk of acquiring breast cancer by 80 percent, according to researchers of a study disclosed in a recent issue of “Epidemiology.”

The study looked at more than 3,000 women, ages 20 to 24. More than half of the women studied had been newly diagnosed with breast cancer, while the remainder were cancer-free.

According to the study, one drink was equal to a 12-ounce can or bottle of beer, a 4-ounce glass of wine or a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor.

Research showed the healthy women who consumed alcohol typically were younger, taller, thinner and white. In addition, the women usually were better educated, were frequent users of birth control pills and were more likely to be current or former smokers.

Women in the study who started drinking during their teens had the same risk as those who started later, proving that recent alcohol consumption and the total amount of alcohol consumed over the years is more relative to risk than the age at which the women started drinking.

Randy Mayer, program coordinator of the Iowa State Student Health Center, said the studies depend considerably on women’s weight, age, drinking history and estrogen levels.

Researchers also have suggested that alcohol may boost estrogen and other hormone levels, which presents a potential breast cancer threat.

Deb Sellers, assistant director of the American Cancer Society Homeward, said Story County has a 20.5 mortality rate per 100,000 cases of breast cancer, ranking it 69th out of Iowa’s 99 counties. She added that the average age of developing breast cancer is 26.9.

According to reports, women who consumed even one drink during the time period between their teens and 30s were more likely to develop breast cancer.

However, alcohol intake and breast cancer had the strongest link in women in their 30s.

“Contemporary drinking [in the past five years] was more important than alcohol consumption in the past,” said Christine Swanson, lead investigator for the National Cancer Institute.

Other reports from researchers at the University of Buffalo are concentrating on the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, which appears in a slow-acting form, as well as a fast-acting form.

The fast-acting form doubles the rate at which alcohol is metabolized.

Results of an experiment with 134 premenopausal and 181 postmenopausal women with breast cancer showed that women who had the fast-acting form of the enzyme and drank heavily, or 14 drinks per week, had a higher risk than light drinkers of developing breast cancer.

“No one else has looked at alcohol dehydrogenase as breast cancer,” said Jo L. Freudenheim, Ph.D. and associate professor of social and preventive medicine at the University of Buffalo, in a press release.

Freudenheim reported alcohol is metabolized to a substance called acetaldehyde, which is believed to be carcinogenic.

She said if the fast-acting enzyme type produces acetaldehyde faster than the body can eliminate it, a build-up of the substance could ensue.

“If this finding is consistent, we may conclude it is acetaldehyde and not alcohol per se that is related to risk,” Freudenheim said, in a press release. “It is important in terms of research for what it tells us about the mechanism of how alcohol may contribute to causing breast cancer.”

She said women concerned about breast cancer should heed the message to drink moderately, if at all.

But evidence from a Copenhagen Heart Study involving 13,000 men and women who drink wine shows their chances of dying from other diseases, including cancer, are decreased by half in comparison to non-drinkers.

Dr. Lynn Rosenberg from the Boston University School of Medicine conducted a study showing a relationship between the reduced risks of breast cancer and a moderate level of wine consumption.

In addition, results from a study conducted by the National Institute of Health say drinking one glass of wine per day may cut breast cancer risks by 22 percent.

“This new research provides one more piece of evidence that moderate wine consumption is more likely to reduce cancer risk than increase it,” said Elisabeth Holmgren, director of the research and education department for Wine Institute of San Francisco, in a press release.