Very hot drinks triple oesophageal cancer risk, study finds — SkimNews
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- The University of Oxford study, tracking nearly 980,000 UK adults over 14 years, found that drinking tea and coffee at "very hot" temperatures triples the risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).
- Dr Keren Papier, senior nutritional epidemiologist at Oxford, led the research published in the International Journal of Cancer; the study found hot drinks did not raise risk of adenocarcinoma, the other form of oesophageal cancer.
- The study found that drinking six or more hot beverages per day raised SCC risk by 71% even after controlling for drink temperature.
- Researchers estimated one in seven UK SCC cases could be avoided if "very hot" drinkers shifted to "hot," and suggested further lowering temperatures could prevent even more cases.
- The findings mirror prior studies in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East and align with a 2016 classification by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer labelling hot drinks "probably carcinogenic to humans."
- Cancer Research UK, the study's funder, does not want cafes and restaurants to lower serving temperatures; its head of health information Fiona Osgun said people should simply wait until drinks are "comfortable."
- Professor Muy-Teck Teh of Queen Mary University of London flagged a key limitation: self-reported temperature preferences may reflect underlying differences in mucosal sensitivity that could themselves predispose people to SCC, complicating any causal claim.
Why it matters: For oesophageal SCC prevention, the researchers estimate roughly 1 in 7 UK cases could be avoided if very-hot drinkers let beverages cool — but Cancer Research UK is explicitly declining to push cafes toward cooler service, instead leaving the behavior change to individuals. That tension between population-level evidence and purely individual-facing guidance is the actionable story for public health messaging.
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