Piping hot drinks may lead to cancer of the esophagus

It's been known for years that hot food and drinks increase the risk of mouth cancer, so this study is not a big surprise.

A few years ago, I read a suggestion to put your finger in a hot drink to get a better idea of how hot is really is, because the mouth is not as sensitive to heat. You will probably be surprised how hot your drinks really are.

Piping hot drinks may lead to cancer of the esophagus

Public Release: 15-Jun-2016
Piping hot drinks may lead to cancer of the esophagus
After examining a larger data set, World Health Organization reverses previous findings that coffee and yerba mate might cause cancer
University of Southern California

Drinking piping hot coffee, tea and the caffeine-infused beverage yerba mate probably causes cancer, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday.

Beverages surpassing 149 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius) may increase the risk of tumors in the esophagus, which resides in the chest area below the throat, according to USC's Mariana Stern and 22 other scientists from 10 countries. T

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"Enjoy your coffee or mate, but make sure it's not very hot," said Stern, an associate professor of preventive medicine and urology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "There is physical evidence that very hot beverages can contribute to cell injury in the esophagus and thus contribute to cancer formation."

The group scoured more than 1,000 studies on over 20 different types of cancer. The scientists concluded 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.

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In the United States, the average coffee drinking temperature is around 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). The temperature varies between 99-190 degrees Fahrenheit (37-88 degrees Celsius), Stern said.

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The scientists downgraded a cup of joe from "possibly carcinogenic" and hot mate from "probably carcinogenic" to safe for consumption as long as neither are scalding hot.

In 1991, the WHO gave coffee that classification based on a much smaller database of studies. Now, the scientists highlighted some studies that associated coffee with cancer when the real culprit was probably tobacco smoking, which is highly correlated with heavy coffee drinking, according to the report.

Late last year, Stern participated in a WHO group that concluded consuming processed meat - bacon, salami, sausages, hot dogs and deli meats - causes cancer.

However, the news about coffee was not grim. The researchers estimate that a cup of coffee a day decreases the risk of liver cancer by 15 percent. In other words, the scientists are giving coffee lovers a free pass to drink as much coffee as their bladders can handle.

"For many cancer types, we found clear evidence that coffee is not carcinogenic," Stern said. "In fact, we found that coffee protects against some cancers such as liver and uterine endometrium cancer."

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