Do you drink your coffee ‘extra hot’? It could be putting you at risk of deadly oesophageal cancer, major study finds
A major study led by the University of Oxford has found that drinking tea and coffee 'extra hot' may significantly raise the risk of developing oesophageal cancer, one of the most aggressive and often late-diagnosed forms of the disease. Researchers found that people who preferred their drinks above 65C were around three times more likely to develop oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma than those who drank them cooler, while drinking more than six hot beverages a day was linked to a 71 per cent higher risk regardless of temperature. The findings, funded by Cancer Research UK, add to growing evidence that heat itself can damage cells in the food pipe, and researchers say a simple change in habits could help prevent some cases.
The study tracked almost 980,000 UK adults over more than a decade, during which 2,348 people developed oesophageal cancer, including 1,045 cases of squamous cell carcinoma. Those who preferred 'hot' drinks had 1.7 times the risk compared with those who liked them 'warm', rising to more than three times the risk for 'very hot' drinkers, though no link was found with the other main type, adenocarcinoma. The researchers estimate that 14 per cent of UK cases could be prevented by letting drinks cool before drinking, though they note actual drink temperatures were not measured. Around 9,500 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer annually in Britain and 7,900 die from it, with smoking, alcohol and obesity remaining the most significant risk factors overall.
- Drinking tea or coffee above 65C linked to tripled oesophageal cancer risk
- Over six hot drinks daily raised risk by 71 per cent, study found
- Experts say letting drinks cool slightly could prevent some UK cases
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Doctors and researchers have long been curious about oesophageal cancer, a disease of the food pipe (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach) that is often caught late and is hard to treat successfully. The main known causes are smoking, alcohol and obesity, but scientists have also wondered for years whether drinking very hot beverages, common in many cultures, might independently raise the risk by repeatedly irritating or damaging the cells lining the food pipe.
This new evidence comes from a large-scale study led by researchers at the University of Oxford, funded by the charity Cancer Research UK, which followed hundreds of thousands of adults in the UK over a long period to see who went on to develop the disease. Studies of this kind, known as cohort studies, track people's habits over time and compare outcomes between groups, which allows researchers to look for links between everyday behaviours, such as drink temperature, and health conditions without directly experimenting on people.
The topic matters because tea and coffee drinking is an almost universal daily habit in Britain, and oesophageal cancer, while less common than some other cancers, carries a high death rate. Around 9,500 people are diagnosed with it each year in the UK, and a large proportion die from it, so identifying any avoidable risk factor, however modest, is of interest to public health experts and the general public alike.