Pregnancy estrogens in relation to coffee and alcohol intake

Total estrogen (TE), estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), and human placental lactogen (hPL) levels were determined by radioimmunoassay in the blood of 141 pregnant women during their 26th and 31st weeks of pregnancy and the results were studied in relation to coffee and alcohol intake. After controlling for maternal age, maternal weight at the corresponding week of pregnancy, parity, and tobacco smoking, as well as for mutual confounding effects, coffee intake, ascertained at the 26th week, was found to be negatively related to pregnancy E2 levels (P = 0.04 during the 26th week, and P = .16 during the 31st week), whereas alcohol intake, also ascertained at the 26th week, was found to be positively related to pregnancy TE levels (P = .04 during the 26th week, and P = .18 during the 31st week). The negative relation between coffee consumption on the one hand and E2 (and possibly TE) levels on the other may be responsible for the inverse association between maternal coffee intake and birth weight; the latter association has been repeatedly confirmed in the literature, although it was neither strong nor statistically significant in the present study. The relations of maternal coffee and alcohol consumption with pregnancy estrogen levels, if confirmed, could be utilized in studies exploring the role of prenatal exposure to these hormones in the etiology of gonadal germ-cell tumors and possibly other diseases.