Drinking Coffee And Tea Can Lower Your Risk Of Developing Head And Neck Cancers
Sometimes, the only thing that can get you through the day is a cup of coffee or tea. Luckily, researchers have found that people who drink those beverages have a slightly reduced risk of developing head or neck cancers.
Head and neck cancer is the seventh most common cancer in the world, and rates have only been rising in low- and middle-income countries.
Every year, there are about 12,800 new cases and around 4,100 related deaths in the United Kingdom, according to Cancer Research U.K.
Many studies have looked into the link between drinking coffee/tea and head and neck cancer, but they led to inconsistent results.
The latest research does not necessarily prove that tea and coffee protect against these cancers, but it does help clarify some previous findings.
“While there has been prior research on coffee and tea consumption and reduced risk of cancer, this study highlighted their varying effects with different sub-sites of head and neck cancer, including the observation that even decaffeinated coffee had some positive impact,” said Dr. Yuan-Chin Amy Lee, the senior author of the study.
The research team examined data from 14 studies that covered North America, Europe, and Latin America. Participants were asked to fill out questionnaires to record their consumption habits for tea and coffee. The researchers also analyzed data for 9,548 people with head and neck cancers and 15,783 without.
They found that individuals who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee each day had a 17 percent lower chance of developing head and neck cancers compared to non-coffee drinkers, a 30 percent lower chance of having cancer at the oral cavity, and a 22 percent lower chance of having throat cancer.
In addition, drinking three to four cups of caffeinated coffee was associated with a 41 percent reduced risk of hypopharyngeal cancer, a type of cancer in the bottom of the throat. Drinking decaffeinated coffee was only linked to a reduced risk of oral cavity cancer.
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The results were less clear for tea. They suggest that consuming one cup of tea per day or less is correlated with a reduced risk of cancer in the lower throat and nine percent lower odds of head and neck cancers overall.
It is possible that bioactive compounds other than caffeine are contributing to the potential anti-cancer effects of the beverages.
The team noted that the study has limitations, including the fact that the self-reporting of tea and coffee drinking may not be reliable. The type of tea and coffee was also not taken into account.
“Coffee and tea habits are fairly complex, and these findings support the need for more data and further studies around the impact that coffee and tea can have on reducing cancer risk,” said Dr. Lee.
The details of the study were published in the journal Cancer.
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