Drinking Coffee Every Day Could Reduce Your Risk of Cancer

A new analysis of data from over a dozen studies suggests that drinking coffee and tea may be associated with a lower risk of developing head and neck cancers, including those affecting the mouth and throat, the journal Cancer reported.

Head and neck cancers are the seventh most common cancers worldwide, with rising incidence in low- and middle-income countries. Previous research on the relationship between coffee or tea consumption and these cancers has yielded mixed results.

To clarify this association, researchers from the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute analyzed data from 14 studies conducted by scientists in the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) consortium, a global research collaboration. Participants in these studies provided detailed information about their past consumption of caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and tea, reporting their intake in terms of cups per day, week, month, or year.

“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 senior author Yuan-Chin Amy Lee, an adjunct associate professor for the Division of Public Health in the university’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. “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.”

When investigators pooled information on 9,548 patients with head and neck cancer and 15,783 controls without cancer, they found that compared with non-coffee-drinkers, individuals who drank more than 4 cups of caffeinated coffee daily had 17% lower odds of having head and neck cancer overall, 30% lower odds of having cancer of the oral cavity, and 22% lower odds of having throat cancer. Drinking three to four cups of caffeinated coffee was linked with a 41% lower risk of having hypopharyngeal cancer (a type of cancer at the bottom of the throat).

Drinking decaffeinated coffee was associated with 25% lower odds of oral cavity cancer. Drinking tea was linked with 29% lower odds of hypopharyngeal cancer. Also, drinking one cup or less of tea daily was linked with a 9% lower risk of head and neck cancer overall and a 27% lower risk of hypopharyngeal cancer, but drinking more than one cup was associated with 38% higher odds of laryngeal cancer.

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