Although many in-vitro and animal studies have demonstrated a protective effect of green tea against breast cancer, findings from epidemiological studies have been inconsistent, and whether high green tea intake reduces the risk of breast cancer remains unclear.

In this Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study, 581 cases of breast cancer were newly diagnosed in 53,793 women during 13.6 years' follow-up from the baseline survey in 1990-94. After the 5-year follow-up survey in 1995-98, 350 cases were newly diagnosed in 43,639 women during 9.5 years' follow-up. The baseline questionnaire assessed the frequency of total green tea drinking while the 5-year follow-up questionnaire assessed that of two types of green tea, Sencha and Bancha/Genmaicha, separately.

Compared with women who drank less than 1 cup of green tea per week, the adjusted hazard ratio [HR] for women who drank 5 or more cups per day was 1.12 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.81-1.56; P for trend = 0.60) in the baseline data. Similarly, compared with women who drank less than 1 cup of Sencha or Bancha/Genmaicha per week, adjusted HRs for women who drank 10 or more cups per day were 1.02 (95% CI 0.55-1.89; P for trend = 0.48) for Sencha and 0.86 (0.34-2.17; P for trend = 0.66) for Bancha/Genmaicha. No inverse association was found regardless of hormone receptor-defined subtype or menopausal status.

In this population-based prospective cohort study in Japan we found no association between green tea drinking and risk of breast cancer.

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