December 23, 2024, 2:01 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
Consuming coffee and tea can have a positive impact on your health. For example, the drinks can improve your ability to concentrate and cardiovascular health. According to a new study, consumption is even associated with a reduced risk of some types of cancer.
Coffee and tea are probably among the most popular hot drinks. After all, who doesn’t enjoy a warm cup in the morning or to warm up in the cold season? An overview by Statista shows that this is not just a subjective perception but is backed up by figures.1 As well as being enjoyable, coffee and tea have health benefits and can even prevent various diseases such as dementia. According to one study, coffee can even offset the risk of death from sitting for too long, while tea can prevent diabetes. New studies have now added another health factor to the list. Coffee and tea are said to protect against certain cancers.
Overview of
Consolidation of Various Studies
As head and neck cancers are among the seventh most common types of cancer worldwide, accounting for 890,000 new cases and 450,000 deaths, researchers from the USA wanted to investigate the extent to which coffee and tea influence the risk.2 This is because anything that gets into the mouth can trigger tumor-causing mutations – but coffee and tea contain strong anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory substances, which is why the scientists focused specifically on them. They used and analyzed over 25,000 pieces of data from 14 previous studies.3 Seven studies were from Europe, six from North America, and one from Latin America.
All data from the studies was collected via questionnaires that asked for socio-demographic information and lifestyle factors, including dietary intake. As part of this, participants were asked to recall their consumption of caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and tea in cups per day, week, month, or year. In most of these studies, three to four or more cups were then categorized as very frequent consumption.
Coffee Reduces the Risk by 17 Percent
After statistical analysis, the researchers came to the conclusion that more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day can reduce the risk of developing cancer in the head or neck area by up to 17 percent. With regard to oral cancer alone, the scientists observed a 30 percent lower risk with four or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day. With regard to the risk of throat cancer, the risk was reduced by 22 percent. However, the consumption of decaffeinated coffee also had a health benefit. Drinking this type of coffee was associated with a 25 percent reduction in oral cavity cancer.
Drinking around three to four cups of tea a day reduced the risk of cancer in the lower throat by around 40 percent. In addition, drinking tea was associated with an almost 30 percent reduction in laryngeal cancer – but only with moderate consumption. A second or third cup of tea increased the likelihood of laryngeal cancer by 38 percent in the study.
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Classification of the Study
“Although there have been previous studies on coffee and tea consumption and reduced cancer risk, this study highlighted their differential effects on different subtypes of head and neck cancer, including the observation that even decaffeinated coffee had a positive impact,” lead author Yuan-Chin Amy Lee explained in a press release.4 “Coffee and tea habits are quite complex, and these findings emphasize the need for more data and studies on the effects that coffee and tea may have on reducing cancer risk.”
It is also worth noting that the study is a summary of various studies. As a result, the different study designs with different objectives may have produced or evaluated some results differently. This could have distorted the findings of this study.
Furthermore, the study focused largely on studies from North America and Europe. This does not guarantee that the results can also apply to other population groups. Another point of criticism is that the data is based on the subjective perception of the participants. This carries the risk that these may not always be true.