Study reveals best way to communicate link between alcohol and breast cancer
The research, undertaken by Oxford Brookes University which has a campus in Swindon, and funded by the charity Prevent Breast Cancer, focused on women aged 40 to 65 in the UK.
It found that many women in this group were unaware of the connection between alcohol consumption and breast cancer.
Read more: 250-year-old Wiltshire estate launches summer adventure series
The study, titled 'Rethinking the message on alcohol and breast cancer with UK women: a Delphi study', was published in the journal Health Promotion International.
It involved a three-stage process, which began with a survey of 260 women, followed by seven online focus groups and a collaborative workshop.
The study's lead author, Dr Emma Davies, said: "We often think of alcohol as causing liver disease, but there's plenty of research showing that drinking alcohol can lead to seven types of cancer, including breast cancer.
"Evidence shows that people who are aware of the link between alcohol and cancer are more supportive of stronger and more effective alcohol policy.
"This means that raising awareness isn't just about individual behaviour change, it is about changing how we think about alcohol at all levels of society."
The study found that several factors, including cultural norms, mistrust of official messaging, psychological defence mechanisms, and stigma, reduced the effectiveness of health warnings.
Fear-based messaging was also found to be counterproductive, as it often led to denial rather than proactive change.
Dr Davies said: "It's clear that fear, blame and shame don't work when it comes to raising awareness of the risks associated with drinking alcohol.
"Cutting back on alcohol can help to reduce the chance of getting cancer, but can also give us plenty of other benefits, such as better sleep and improved mood."
The study concluded that narrative-based framing, using personal stories from peers who have experienced breast cancer, was more effective than stark statistics or scare tactics.
Messages were most accepted when framed positively, highlighting how reducing drinking can empower women and protect their health, rather than through guilt or blame.
Dr Davies added: "Importantly, we need a clear and evidence-based alcohol policy to reduce risks across the population.
Read more: WHSmith shops to be renamed as firm sells up at cut price
"We need to understand why people drink and what the emotional and cultural barriers are to giving up or cutting down.
"We hope our study will equip policymakers, charities, clinicians, and health communicators with an evidence-based roadmap to reshape prevention campaigns and reduce alcohol-related harms, including breast cancer and other cancer cases."
For more information and advice on alcohol and cancer, visit the World Cancer Research Fund's Cancer Prevention Action Week page.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
%3Amax_bytes(150000)%3Astrip_icc()%2FTAL-header-athens-greece-hannah-howard-EDTRAVESSAY0725-eaf0f0594a1841a29a52dc5d2fa7d009.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Travel + Leisure
a day ago
- Travel + Leisure
An Eating Disorder Got in the Way of My Travel Dreams—but My Recovery Helped Me Reclaim the World
There was a time when I couldn't imagine getting on a plane, let alone biting into a croissant in Paris or swimming in the Mediterranean. Or rather, I could imagine those things, but they lived in a fantasy life, far removed from the one I actually inhabited. That life belonged to a thinner, more disciplined version of me—someone who had finally earned joy, earned adventure, earned a seat at the table. I punished my imperfect body with a revolving door of diets and restrictions that crescendoed into a full-blown eating disorder: first, anorexia; then binge eating; then a confusing diagnosis of EDNOS—eating disorder not otherwise specified, a name that felt as vague and dissatisfying as the experience itself. Hannah while in Delphi, Greece, famous for its ancient oracle of Apollo. In college, I dreamed of studying abroad. My friends posted pictures from Florence and Buenos Aires, sipping wine and hiking ruins, glowing with possibility. I told myself I couldn't go because of credits or timing. But deep down, I knew the truth: I was afraid. Afraid of unfamiliar food. Afraid of being the biggest girl on the trip. Afraid of what might happen if I wasn't in complete control. My eating disorder had one job: to keep me small. And it did. Not just physically, but in every way. It whispered, After you lose the weight, real life can begin. And I listened. In my early 20s, I entered treatment. I met other women—some my age, others in their 30s, 40s, 60s—who had lived their whole lives in the shadow of that same lie. They hadn't taken the trip, or eaten the cake, or worn the dress. They were still waiting to be 'ready.' And I saw, with a kind of clarity that felt like heartbreak, how long a person could wait. Recovery, for me, was not linear or pretty. It was messy, slow, and filled with backslides and tiny wins. But as I stitched myself back together, piece by painful piece, I made myself a promise: I would not live the rest of my life in a cage of my own making. A few years after treatment, I booked a trip with a friend who got it to Mexico. I cried in the airport bathroom. I second-guessed every outfit in my bag. I worried I was too big to deserve adventure. But I got on the plane anyway. And then something wild happened: I had a good time. A really good time. I ate street tacos without counting calories. I stood in front of ancient ruins and felt small in the best way possible. I wore a bathing suit on a beach where no one knew me, and I took photos where my body wasn't hidden or strategically angled—and tried (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) not to let the critical voice in my head narrate them. That trip cracked something open in me. It was the first time in a long time I felt connected to my body—not as a problem to fix, but as a vessel that carried me somewhere new. Since then, I've traveled to dozens of places I once would have ruled out entirely. I've hiked through olive groves in the south of Spain and floated in thermal waters in Costa Rica. I've tasted jackfruit curry in a banana leaf hut on the backwaters of Kerala and dumplings in a Bangkok night market. I've also had meltdowns in hotel rooms, cried after seeing an unflattering photo, and ordered room service because I was too overwhelmed to deal with the buffet. Recovery is still a process. The voice in my head didn't disappear—it just got quieter. And I've gotten better at not believing it. Traveling on a boat while in Istanbul. Travel is, in many ways, the opposite of my eating disorder. My eating disorder was about control, rigidity, sameness. Travel is about surrender, openness, surprise. It asks me to be present in a body I don't always love, but am learning to live in with more compassion. In Istanbul, I stepped into a Turkish hammam, naked but for a towel and nerves. I expected judgment, comparison. What I found instead were women of every shape and size, laughing, scrubbing, stretching. Nobody cared about my thighs. In Switzerland, after what felt like 10 straight meals of potatoes, bacon, and cheese, the old panic started to bubble up—you've ruined everything. But I reminded myself: I am OK. I am resilient. I will eat a vegetable again. Every time I travel, I reclaim a little more space—not just in the world, but in myself. I take up room in photos. I order the special even if it's rich. I walk through cities without shrinking. I don't wait to be 'ready.' I go now. This isn't a story about being healed. It's a story about choosing presence over perfection, again and again. Sometimes when I travel, I still catch myself worrying about how I look. But then I try to shift the question: How do I feel? Am I alive? Curious? Awake to the smells of a new market, the salt on my skin after a swim, the warmth of bread pulled fresh from a bakery oven? That's what I want to remember. That's what I want to collect. Not proof that I looked thin enough in a photo, but memories that I was there—fully, messily, joyfully there. My body is not a before-and-after story. It's a passport. And I intend to keep using it.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Study reveals best way to communicate link between alcohol and breast cancer
A new study has revealed the best way to communicate the link between alcohol and breast cancer. The research, undertaken by Oxford Brookes University which has a campus in Swindon, and funded by the charity Prevent Breast Cancer, focused on women aged 40 to 65 in the UK. It found that many women in this group were unaware of the connection between alcohol consumption and breast cancer. Read more: 250-year-old Wiltshire estate launches summer adventure series The study, titled 'Rethinking the message on alcohol and breast cancer with UK women: a Delphi study', was published in the journal Health Promotion International. It involved a three-stage process, which began with a survey of 260 women, followed by seven online focus groups and a collaborative workshop. The study's lead author, Dr Emma Davies, said: "We often think of alcohol as causing liver disease, but there's plenty of research showing that drinking alcohol can lead to seven types of cancer, including breast cancer. "Evidence shows that people who are aware of the link between alcohol and cancer are more supportive of stronger and more effective alcohol policy. "This means that raising awareness isn't just about individual behaviour change, it is about changing how we think about alcohol at all levels of society." The study found that several factors, including cultural norms, mistrust of official messaging, psychological defence mechanisms, and stigma, reduced the effectiveness of health warnings. Fear-based messaging was also found to be counterproductive, as it often led to denial rather than proactive change. Dr Davies said: "It's clear that fear, blame and shame don't work when it comes to raising awareness of the risks associated with drinking alcohol. "Cutting back on alcohol can help to reduce the chance of getting cancer, but can also give us plenty of other benefits, such as better sleep and improved mood." The study concluded that narrative-based framing, using personal stories from peers who have experienced breast cancer, was more effective than stark statistics or scare tactics. Messages were most accepted when framed positively, highlighting how reducing drinking can empower women and protect their health, rather than through guilt or blame. Dr Davies added: "Importantly, we need a clear and evidence-based alcohol policy to reduce risks across the population. Read more: WHSmith shops to be renamed as firm sells up at cut price "We need to understand why people drink and what the emotional and cultural barriers are to giving up or cutting down. "We hope our study will equip policymakers, charities, clinicians, and health communicators with an evidence-based roadmap to reshape prevention campaigns and reduce alcohol-related harms, including breast cancer and other cancer cases." For more information and advice on alcohol and cancer, visit the World Cancer Research Fund's Cancer Prevention Action Week page.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Yahoo
New space startup Lux Aeterna wants to make satellites reusable
Satellites can accomplish incredible tasks like provide internet, or help monitor wildfires. But many of them ultimately meet a fiery death burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. Others use their last bit of fuel to move to so-called 'graveyard' orbits, where they circle the planet in a perpetual deep freeze. A new startup called Lux Aeterna wants to change this. The Denver-based company, which is coming out of stealth today, has designed a reusable satellite called Delphi that it aims to launch — and land — in 2027. If successful, it could help slash the cost to get satellite payloads into space. It would also make the process far more flexible than it is today, since satellites are designed to stay in orbit for years and essentially can't be modified for other uses. These attributes have already piqued the interest of the Department of Defense, which has made low-Earth orbit an important part of the United States' military strategy. Venture capitalists have also taken notice — and written checks. The startup's pitch was attractive enough to generate $4 million in pre-seed funding, led by Space Capital and including other early-stage funds like Dynamo Ventures and Mission One Capital. Founder and CEO Brian Taylor said the idea for Lux Aeterna came to him last year while he watched his former employer, SpaceX, launch one of its Starship test vehicles into space. 'I want to fill Starship with something amazing, and something that changes the entire industry,' Taylor recalled thinking during an interview with TechCrunch. Starship is the biggest rocket ever built. As part of that, it has the potential to send larger payloads into space than was previously possible. Size matters for people who build satellites and other spacecraft, since they're often working backwards from the simple constraint of what can fit inside a rocket's cargo area. And Starship is not alone — there are other heavy-lift rockets in the works, too, like Blue Origin's New Glenn. It's hard to design a satellite that can survive the brutal forces of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speeds. But with the extra space afforded by heavy-lift rockets, Taylor said it's possible to build one that can survive multiple re-entries without having to compromise on the technology because of cost or weight tradeoffs. In the case of Lux Aeterna, that means using a heat shield. In the rendering the startup released Wednesday, the Delphi satellite's conical heat shield is reminiscent of the ones that protected some of NASA's most famous spacecraft. There's a reason for that, according to Taylor: Those designs worked. 'We definitely looked at what NASA had done in the past on exploratory missions [and] sample return missions, and that really helped justify the architecture that we've gone with,' he said. 'I think it's very important, when you're doing something ambitious like this, that you're not reinventing the wheel on everything, right?' Taylor declined to get into further specifics about how the Delphi satellite will work, or how Lux Aeterna will refurbish the craft between launches. (The design appears to involve the ability to fold the satellite bus structure so that it fits safely behind the heat shield.) To be sure, he has plenty of experience in the satellite world. In addition to working on Starlink at SpaceX, Taylor also worked on Amazon's Kuiper satellite program, and at space infrastructure startup Loft Orbital. The plan for Delphi is to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2027, perform a full orbital flight, and then come back down to Earth. Then Lux Aeterna wants to do that all over again to prove out Delphi's reusability. From there, Taylor said his team is working on a larger production vehicle that will demonstrate far greater reusability. Despite decades of spaceflight innovation, Taylor said he believes the industry is still very young, which leaves plenty of opportunity for a company like Lux Aeterna to establish a long-running business. 'It's not to the maturity level of [computer] chips. It's not at the maturity level of automotive,' he said. Satellite reusability will help change that. And while Taylor is committed to that cause, he said he's thrilled about all the things he can't imagine that will exist in a space-based economy. 'We don't know what we don't know is going to come,' he said. 'That's probably the most exciting part.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
