A risk in a teacup: Researchers find link between very hot drinks and oesophageal cancer

The link between consuming very hot drinks and oesophageal cancer has been established by the world’s largest study into the subject yet. Regularly drinking piping hot tea and coffee could triple the risk of developing oesophageal cancer — a cancer that's found in the gullet or food pipe, according to the world’s largest study to date that establishes a link between the two. Hot drinks are some of the most widely consumed beverages across Europe, with Europeans reported to drink an average of 5.7kg of coffee per person each year in 2023. While the health benefits of hot drinks have been widely studied, their potential cancer risks have remained unclear within Western populations, according to Oxford University researchers, who published their findings in the International Journal of Cancer. Through a 14-year analysis of nearly a million middle-aged men and women based in the United Kingdom, those who have their drinks "very hot" — classified as 65 degrees Celsius or above by the International Agency for Research on Cancer — were found to face an almost three times higher risk of developing cancer of the food pipe or gullet than those who drink them “warm”. The amount consumed also mattered, with six or more hot drinks per day increasing the risk. “The study being so large definitely adds to the evidence that having hot and very hot drinks increases your risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma [a type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells on the skin],” Keren Papier, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Oxford's population health department and co-author of the study, told Euronews Health. Most people drink coffee and tea at temperatures of between 50 and 60 degrees Celsius, although this can vary depending on region and preparation methods. Even with the addition of milk, it’s advised to wait at least a few minutes before drinking. “If a drink is uncomfortable to drink, letting it sit to cool down a bit to what you might expect to be warm or hot as opposed to very hot would be a good idea,” Papier said. A rare cancer Oesophageal cancer has two primary subtypes that describe where the cancer originates: squamous cell oesophageal cancer and adenocarcinoma. It has a disproportionately higher incidence rate in the UK, listed as the 14th most common cancer in the country, according to Cancer Research UK. But the squamous cell oesophageal cancer subtype, which the study found links to, is still rare. “The risk is a 1% lifetime risk of being diagnosed with this cancer in the UK,” Papier said. “But of course, drinking tea and coffee are things that are quite widely consumed, so if we can let the drink cool down a little bit, that would definitely be beneficial to help with preventing this cancer from occurring.” Cancer Research also states that the main lifestyle risks for oesophageal cancer continue to be smoking and drinking, followed by obesity. “The best thing beyond our study is to make sure that you cut your smoking and maybe avoiding alcohol helps a bit as well,” Papier said. “It’s important to keep what we know generally about the risk factors of cancer across this cancer and other cancers, and not to forget that when thinking about prevention.”