Piping hot drinks shown by WHO to increase risk of oesophageal cancer.

Previous studies show that oesophageal cancer is the eighth most common cause of cancer worldwide and one of the main causes of cancer death, with approximately 400,000 deaths recorded in 2012, and 5% of all cancer deaths. The proportion of oesophageal cancer cases that may be linked to drinking very hot beverages is not known. The current study investigates whether drinking coffee, mate or other very hot beverages causes cancer.
The current study scoured more than 1,000 studies on over 20 different types of cancer. Results show that drinking any beverage hotter than 149 degrees Fahrenheit is probably carcinogenetic to humans, placing scalding hot drinks in the same category as DDT, frying food at high temperatures, consumption of red meat and the human papillomavirus.
The team surmise that their findings suggest that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of oesophageal cancer and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible. For the future, the researchers state that the large body of evidence led to the re-evaluation of the carcinogenicity of coffee drinking, previously classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B) by IARC in 1991, to safe for consumption as long as the non-alcoholic beverages are not scalding hot.
Source: Keck Medicine of USC
Categories
cancer, carcinogen, healthinnovations, nutrition, oesophageal cancer
Michelle Petersen View All
Michelle is a health industry veteran who taught and worked in the field before training as a science journalist.
Featured by numerous prestigious brands and publishers, she specializes in clinical trial innovation--expertise she gained while working in multiple positions within the private sector, the NHS, and Oxford University.