Study: Drinking Very Hot Tea Linked to Throat Cancer

[MysteriBoi]

I read this yesterday in the newspaper, just to let you guys know if you haven't read about it yet.

 

 

 

"Drinking hot tea may cause throat cancer, Iranian researchers said Friday, suggesting people should let steaming drinks cool before consuming them.

 

Previous studies have linked tobacco and alcohol with cancer of the esophagus, and the research published in the British Medical Journal suggests that scalding beverages may also somehow pave the way for such tumors.

 

Drinking very hot tea at a temperature of greater than 158 degrees was associated with an eight-fold increased risk of throat cancer compared to sipping warm or lukewarm tea at less than 149 degrees, the researchers said.

 

Reza Malekzadeh of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and colleagues studied the tea-drinking habits of 300 people with esophageal cancer and another 571 healthy men and women from the same area in Golestan Province in northern Iran.

 

That region has one of the highest rates of throat cancer in the world but smoking rates and alcohol consumption are low, the researchers said. Nearly all the volunteers drank black tea regularly, consuming on average more than a liter each day.

 

People who regularly drank tea less than two minutes after pouring were five times more likely to develop the cancer compared to those who waited four or more minutes, the researchers said.

 

British studies have reported people prefer their tea at an average temperature of 56 degrees to 60 degrees, they noted.

 

It is not clear how hot tea might cause cancer but one idea is that repeated thermal injury to the lining of the throat somehow initiates it, researchers said.

 

Cancers of the esophagus kill more than 500,000 people worldwide each year, with the bulk of the disease occurring in discrete populations in Asia, Africa, and South America. The tumors are especially deadly, with five-year survival rates of 12 to 31 percent.

 

Earlier this week, U.S. and Japanese researchers reported that about a third of East Asians — Chinese, Japanese and Koreans — have an enzyme deficiency that puts them at higher risk of developing esophageal cancer when they drink alcohol."

[iNow]

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29912977/

[Mokele]

I'm highly skeptical - what if these people were going to develop cancer *anyway*, and the underlying cause reduced sensitivity in their throats, which is what allowed them to drink such hot tea in the first place? And what's the putative mechanism? Heat as a mutagen? Increased strain on the cells repairing damage to the throat? Has it been tested in vitro?

[iPeppers]

I would think drinking tea that hot would burn your throat a little, over and over again. Of course damaging cells like that in the same area could eventually lead to cancer or other permanent damage. It's almost common sense to learn from mistakes and not keep drinking hot beverages that burn you every time.

 

Who drinks tea that hot anyways? And if the answer is lots of people, than why do I never hear of way more people with throat cancer? As I know many many people who drink tea and not a single one with throat cancer.

[antimatter]

I don't doubt that this happens, occasionally, but it seems yet another cancer scare.

Similar to Cell Phones, there are isolated incidents, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a trend.

[Psycho]

I would think drinking tea that hot would burn your throat a little, over and over again. Of course damaging cells like that in the same area could eventually lead to cancer or other permanent damage. It's almost common sense to learn from mistakes and not keep drinking hot beverages that burn you every time.

 

Who drinks tea that hot anyways? And if the answer is lots of people, than why do I never hear of way more people with throat cancer? As I know many many people who drink tea and not a single one with throat cancer.

 

To be fair it is based on a logical assertion rather than actual evidence, if you damage the cells (with heat) then you are going to have to replace those cells which will cause more chance of mutagenesis due to more DNA replication, what empirical evidence would actually show would be pretty harder to tell for all intensive purposes all it is doing is speeding up the process of aging.

 

Lot of people do drink hot tea and i'm sure it has some effect but I would suggest it would be very small, no more than drinking coke or fruit juice. How I also have no evidence to back this up.