Largest study of its kind links hot drinks like tea and coffee to cancer risk
Shocking new research has linked the consumption of hot drinks to a certain form of oesophageal cancer, yet the risk isn't to do with tea or coffee in particular but how hot you like to consume it on a regular basis.
Unlike a lot of danger foods which have innate risks linked to their content, these hot beverages are linked to oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) specifically due to the temperature, with the largest study of its kind confirming the dangerous connection.
The research, funded by Cancer Research UK, supports existing information that has been carried out by scientists across the world for a number of years, yet this new study appears to be cement the link with new data.
Thankfully it's not something where you'll have to stop drinking hot beverages altogether – as that would be a nightmare scenario for anyone who relies on a morning coffee to perk themselves up at the start of the day – but you might have to adjust your habits as the risk really isn't worth it.
Study reveals that hot drinks are linked to cancer
As revealed by Dr Keren Papier, a senior nutritional epidemiologist and lead researcher of the new study, "international research has shown for some time that drinking beverages like mate at very high temperatures, as is typical in South America, is linked to increased risk of certain oesophageal cancers.
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"What was less clear," Dr Papier continues, "was whether this also applied to the temperatures at which hot drinks are usually consumed in Western populations," with the study focusing on the popularity of tea and coffee predominantly.
Data was analyzed from a pool of around 980,000 adults in the United Kingdom, with each participant required to report how hot they typically liked their beverages before their health was tracked over a 10-year period.
"This is now the largest study to look at that question in a UK population," the epidemiologist explained, "where many people drink tea and coffee daily. It adds to existing evidence that drinking very hot drinks could increase the risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma."
Research is still yet to discover if there is a specific temperature threshold at which point the risk increases, but generally people have been warned to wait a while before consuming their drinks, as warm is far less dangerous than hot despite your potential personal preference.
How dangerous is the risk?
One thing to take into consideration is that, while the risk is certainly still there, it is comparatively low in relation to other cancer-causing factors, although the difference between temperature classifications is still significant enough to not be ignored.
Findings revealed that those who liked their drinks 'hot' encountered double the risk of developing SCC compared to those who consumed 'warm' beverages, and that risk increased to three times when looking at people who drank their tea and coffee 'very hot'.
Overall the lifetime risk of oesophageal SCC remains still small in the UK specifically, with people possessing just a 1% chance on average of developing the dangerous disease.