Another thing you love that probably causes cancer

Is there anything left in life that doesn’t cause cancer?

An international group of scientists has linked hot tea with esophageal cancer, according to a new study. The problem doesn’t appear to be the tea itself, but the temperature at which it is consumed.

Residents of Golestan province in northern Iran have one of the highest rates of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in the world. They don’t drink alcohol or smoke –- the two primary risk factors for the disease in the West –- but they do consume tea. Lots of it. Nearly 1.2 liters per day, on average. So local researchers set out looking for a connection.

They recruited 300 esophageal cancer patients who were diagnosed at the only gastrointestinal specialty clinic in the eastern part of Golestan and matched them up with 571 healthy controls who shared their age, gender and place of residence. All but one of them drank tea, and they gave interviewers information about their tea consumption and brewing habits.

Teaming up with investigators from the U.S., England, France and Sweden, the researchers calculated that people who said they drank “hot” tea (149 to 156 degrees Fahrenheit) were more than twice as likely to develop esophageal cancer as people who said they drank the beverage “warm” or “lukewarm” (less than 140 degrees). Those who said they took their tea “very hot” (at least 158 degrees) were more than eight times as likely to get esophageal cancer, according to the study, published online today by BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal.

The researchers also asked people how long they waited to drink their tea after pouring it. Those who said they waited two to three minutes were nearly 2.5 times more likely to develop the cancer compared with people who said they waited at least four minutes. Impatient tea drinkers who waited less than two minutes were 5.4 times as likely to be diagnosed with esophageal cancer, the study found.

The study didn’t assess the mechanism linking hot tea to esophageal cancer, but the researchers said the temperature of the liquid was almost certainly to blame rather than the compounds in the tea itself.

In an editorial accompanying the study, David Whiteman of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, advised tea drinkers in Iran and elsewhere to simply exercise some patience before enjoying their favorite beverage.

“It is difficult to imagine any adverse consequences of waiting at least four minutes before drinking a cup of freshly boiled tea, or more generally allowing foods and beverages to cool from ‘scalding’ to ‘tolerable’ before swallowing,” he wrote.

-- Karen Kaplan

Photo credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Ardeshir]

I am not a medical professional, but I agree with the study. As an Iranian, I can attest to the fact that the people from the north of Iran, along the central and eastern coast of the caspian sea are well known throughout Iran for drinking their tea extremely hot, which would burn the lips of anyone else not use to this.

[Kire]

Gee....I wonder what the ENTIRE nations of China, Japan and Korea....and, lest we forget, England....have to say about this tea-cancer link. What are these billions of people going to drink?

[Lazaro]

Nobody is free of cancer, hopefully soon find a cure and to fight this disease now, because it is tedious to go to therapy all the time and drugs to treat the disease are very strong opiates as Oxycodone, Lortab, Norco medicines too high in codeine and acetaminophen considered hallucinogenic drugs, as indicated in findrxonline.com then imagine how much pain, really hope there will be a solution as quickly as possible for this .....

[Right]

Of course, the prevalence of esophageal cancer in this particular region has *NOTHING* to do with perhaps most people in this region not living anywhere else, and hence has a higher chance of a genetic predisposition to something.

Not at all.

Now if you matched these results in English, Chinese, Japanese, etc. populations, and ALSO proved a link to esophageal cancer, then that's real science.

[Barron]

It's the temperature of the liquid, not the actual tea content that causes this. "The problem doesn’t appear to be the tea itself, but the temperature at which it is consumed."

[Katy]

I had also heard that northern Iran had a higher rate of throat cancer due to their preference for scalding tea. Perhaps the title of this article leads people to focus on tea being the cause of the cancer, when the scalding temperature of tea should be the focus. I wonder if people in Japan, China, England, or other countries and cultures that drink larger amounts of tea, do they drink their tea at a more tolerable hot temperature?

I am a first generation California born Iranian American. My grandfather always enjoyed his tea still boiling as it was poured into his glass. If it was more than 2 degrees cooler than boiling point, he would complain that it was freezing (yakheh) and to get him another tea. I learned quickly that if I had tea with him, to wait till it cooled before sipping. You only need to get burned once to learn that lesson.

It's interesting to read that this may not be an urban myth after all.

[dermatology rancho cucamonga]

i also heard this before its really good to know that there's a resources regarding,esophageal cancer is a good subject to explore.

by: sphin