Cancer study hints at lower risk for tea and coffee drinkers

Scientists find 'potentially protective effect' for patients with throat and mouth cancer

A study found that patients who drank more than four cups of coffee a day were 17 per cent less likely to develop head and neck cancers. AFP

Drinking tea or coffee might have a “protective effect” against certain types of cancer, scientists revealed on Monday.

In a study, patients who drank more than four cups of coffee a day were 17 per cent less likely to be affected by a group of “head and neck” cancers, including mouth and throat cancer. One cup of tea a day improved their odds by nine per cent.

Scientists said more work was needed to understand the link, but suggested that “bioactive compounds” found in coffee and tea could slow the spread of disease. Even decaffeinated coffee appeared to have “some positive impact”, said lead author Yuan-Chin Amy Lee of the University of Utah School of Medicine.

The research on 9,500 cancer patients “suggests a potentially protective effect”, said the publishing company, Wiley, behind the study in the journal Cancer. Scientists used data from 14 different studies in which patients were given questionnaires about their consumption of hot drinks.

“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,” Dr Lee said. The research was carried out in Europe and North America and lacked data on specific drinking habits, for example the growing popularity of herbal tea.

Tom Sanders, a King's College London professor of nutrition, said the study could reassure coffee and tea drinkers that their risk is not heightened. However, he said scientists “cannot say from this study that drinking these beverages will lower risk of these cancers”.

“People who drink a lot of coffee and tea may be more likely to avoid other harmful behaviours such as drinking alcohol and using tobacco and so may be at a lower risk of these cancers for other reasons,” Prof Sanders said.

Regular coffee drinkers had 22 per cent lower odds of throat cancer and 30 per cent less chance of cancer of the oral cavity. There was at least one result in the opposite direction, as patients who drank more than one cup of tea a day were 38 per cent more likely to have cancer in the larynx.

Ben O’Leary, a scientist at the International Centre for Recurrent Head and Neck Cancer in London, said it was “very difficult and usually impossible to fully disentangle why you see the associations that you do” in studies such as this. He said more work was needed before advice or recommendations could be issued.

The study 'Coffee and tea consumption and the risk of head and neck cancer: An updated pooled analysis in the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology Consortium', by Timothy Nguyen et al, is published in the journal Cancer.