Washington, Sep 8 (ANI): A new study has found that post-menopausal women who drink two or more alcoholic beverages per day are at a double risk of endometrial cancer.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Southern California, is the first prospective study to report a considerable association between alcohol and endometrial cancer.

"Previous studies have shown that alcohol consumption has been associated with higher levels of estrogens in postmenopausal women, which could be the mechanism by which daily alcohol intake increases one's risk of endometrial cancer," says Veronica Wendy Setiawan, assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Endometrial cancer, which attacks the lining of the uterus, is the most common cancer of the female reproductive system, and accounts for about 6 percent of all cancers in women, according to the National Cancer Institute.

"It's important for women, especially postmenopausal women, to know and understand the consequences of high alcohol consumption. It does not affect just the liver, but alcohol has been associated with breast cancer and now endometrial cancer," said. Setiawan.

Researchers took data from the Multiethnic Cohort Study, an epidemiological study of more than 215,000 people from Los Angeles and Hawaii created in 1993 by Dr. BrTan Henderson, dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and Dr. Laurence Kolonel of the University of Hawaii.

The study followed 41,574 postmenopausal black, Japanese-American, Latina, Native-Hawaiian and white women in Los Angeles and Hawaii for approximately eight years. Data on alcohol intake and endometrial cancer risk factors were obtained from a baseline questionnaire.

Researchers stressed that the findings were important, but need to be investigated further before any recommendations about alcohol consumption can be made.

"This discovery is important as it suggests that changes to certain lifestyle choices may potentially help alter risk of the disease. However, these findings are preliminary and must be investigated further before any recommendations about alcohol consumption can be made," says Henderson, the paper's senior author.

The study also found that the association of alcohol intake and endometrial cancer is stronger among lean women than among overweight or obese postmenopausal women.

"Our data suggest that lean women may be more sensitive to modest elevations in hormone levels resulting from alcohol drinking than obese women who already have high levels of estrogen and therefore mask alcohol as an independent risk factor," says Setiawan.

"Again, this is all preliminary and more studies with sufficient numbers of heavy drinkers are needed to corroborate our finding," she adds.

The study is published online in the International Journal of Cancer. (ANI)