A new study has found that caffeinated coffee may significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer in women with a particular type of gene mutation.

"If we can reduce a little bit the risk of breast cancer that is great," Dr. Parviz Ghadirian, a Montreal epidemioligist, told CTV News.

The study investigated the relationship between coffee consumption and breast cancer and was led by University of Toronto professor Steven A. Narod. It was published in the January edition of the International Journal of Cancer.

"Those women who drank six or more cups of coffee a day on average had about a 75 per cent reduction in the risk of breast cancer," Narod said.

The study looked at women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations, and found those who drank coffee had less risk of developing breast cancer than those who did not. Drinking coffee was especially protective against breast cancer among those with a BRCA1 mutation.

Those who drank one to three cups daily had a 10 per cent lower chance of developing breast cancer than those who did not drink coffee. Those who drank four or five cups had a 25 per cent lower risk. And those who drank six cups or more had a 69 per cent lower chance of developing breast cancer.

Coffee drinking had a negligible effect on breast cancer risk for women with the BRCA2 gene mutation, however.

"These results suggest that among women with BRCA gene mutation, coffee consumption is unlikely to be harmful and that high levels of consumption may in fact be related to reduced breast cancer risk," summarized the study.

The study looked at 1,690 women from 40 clinical centres in four countries. They were surveyed about their lifetime coffee consumption through a self-administered questionnaire.

The researchers believe the lower cancer risk may be the result of phtoestrogens found in the coffee. Decaffeinated coffee consumption had no effect on breast cancer rates.

"In conclusion, our findings suggest that relatively high coffee consumption may reduce breast cancer risk among women with BRCA and/or BRCA2 gene mutations," stated the study.

"It will be of great importance to confirm this association in other populations, and if confirmed, to explore the biological basis for this observation."

Narod hopes to use the research to discover other ways of preventing breast cancer.

"If we can understand how it is that coffee exactly went about preventing breast cancer that may give us a clue to other preventative treatments we can do without the side effects of drinking that much coffee," he said.