Steaming-hot tea and throat cancer risk

Green tea may not offer any protection against throat cancer and drinking the beverage piping-hot may actually raise a person's risk of the disease.A number of studies have linked green tea - with its high content of antioxidant compounds called cathechins - to lower risks of certain cancers, including prostate, colon and breast cancers. Some studies have suggested this may hold true when it comes to cancer of the esophagus, but others have found no such benefit. Researchers from China studied 5,399 Chinese adults with and without oesophageal cancer and found no evidence that those who regularly drank green tea had a lower risk of the disease. There was, however, evidence that drinking tea at a high temperature may actually promote the cancer. It was found that compared with adults who did not drink tea those who boiled their tea water had two to three times the risk of oesophageal cancer. There was no risk found among tea drinkers who used non-boiling water.

The findings add to previous studies linking hot beverages to a higher risk of oesophageal cancer. The researchers found that people who regularly drank their tea right after pouring had a greater risk of the disease than tea drinkers who liked to let the beverage cool for a few minutes. It is not clear how hot beverages might promote oesophageal cancer, but one possibility is that the repeated heat damages cells in the throat lining.The bottom line is that people should take their liquids warm, but not steaming-hot. A number of studies have suggested that regularly having hot liquids - including tea, coffee and soup - may raise the risks of both oesophageal and stomach cancers.

While the above study did not find a protective effective of green tea, drinking green tea at a moderate temperature may still have health benefits, including lower risks of some cancers.

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