Alcohol consumption and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a cohort of older women

We investigated the relation of alcohol consumption to risk of non-Hodgkin' s lymphoma (NHL) in a cohort of 35 156 Iowa women aged 55-69 years who part icipated in the Iowa Women's Health Study in 1986. Alcohol consumption at b aseline was obtained using a mailed questionnaire. During the 9-year follow -up period, 143 incident cases of NHL were identified. Higher alcohol consu mption was significantly associated with a decreased risk of NHL (P-trend = 0.03). Compared to non-drinkers, multivariate-adjusted relative risks (RRs ) were decreased for women with intake of less than or equal to 3.4 g day(- 1) (RR = 0.78; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.51-1.21) and > 3.4 g day(-1) (RR = 0.59; 0.36-0.97). The inverse association could not be attributed to one particular type of alcoholic beverage, although red wine (RR = 0.21 for > 2 glasses per month vs non-drinker; 0.05-0.86; P-trend = 0.02) has the m ost distinct effect. The apparent protective effect was universal regardles s of specific NHL grade or Working Formulation subtype, but was most pronou nced for nodal NHL (RR = 0.48; 0.26-0.90; P-trend = 0.01) and low-grade NHL (RR = 0.52; 0.21-1.26; P-trend = 0.05). These data suggest that moderate a lcohol consumption is inversely associated with the risk of NHL in older wo men and the amount of alcohol consumed, rather than the type of alcoholic b everages, appears to be the main effect determinant.