Hot Tea and Cancer
by Julian
(Horsham)
March 27 2009 - You may want to wait four minutes before sipping your next cup of tea.
Drinking tea that is very hot can raise the risk of cancer of the esophagus, the muscular tube that carries food and liquids from the throat to the stomach, according to a study the British Medical Journal published today.
It's not tea per se; it's really the temperature at which the beverage is drunk, Paolo Boffetta, group head and cluster coordinator at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, said in a video released on the Web by BMJ.
Scientists set out to investigate why the Golestan province in northern Iran has one of the world's highest rates of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, the most common kind of tumors of the esophagus. Locals don't use much tobacco or alcohol, the main cause for such cancers in Europe and the U.S. They do drink tea at temperatures that often exceed 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers said.
Compared with drinking the beverage four or more minutes after being poured, drinking tea less than two minutes after pouring was associated with a fivefold higher risk of esophageal cancer, according to the study findings. Likewise, drinking very hot tea, meaning 70 degrees or more, was associated with an eightfold increased risk, the study showed.
This has the potential to save lives,? Boffetta said.
Cancers of the esophagus kill more than 500,000 people around the world every year, the researchers said, citing statistics from the IARC and the American Cancer Society.
Major Importance
Locally in Iran this is going to be of major importance because they can intervene on the spot and it's not just in Iran that people drink a lot of hot tea, Nick Day, emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Cambridge, said in the video.
The authors of the report investigated the drinking habits of 300 people diagnosed with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and a matched group of 571 healthy people from the same area. Almost all participants drank black tea regularly, with an average volume consumed of more than 1 liter (0.3 gallon) a day.
The study showed no link between the amount of tea consumed and risk of cancer. Previous studies have pointed to possible benefits deriving from sipping the beverage. Green tea was suggested as a treatment for diabetes more than 70 years ago. Other studies have shown possible benefits of green tea in cancer and heart disease prevention.
Still, better to wait until it cools down a bit before taking the first sip. Previous studies from the U.K. have reported an average temperature preference of 56 to 60 degrees among healthy people, the researchers said.
References
Albertina Torsoli (27 March 2009). Wait Four Minutes to Drink Tea to Avoid Cancer, Researchers Say. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aZJ98fMMLw6k&refer=europe.
