Drinking hot tea increases the risk of throat cancer by 90%, warn experts

By drinking a hot cup of tea, you have more than doubled your risk of throat cancer, experts warned.

Boiling water damages the lining of the mouth, throat and esophagus – and can fuel tumors, according to new findings.

Getty – Contributor

The scientists said that those who drank three cuppas above 60 ° C increased their risk of contracting the disease by 90%.

This temperature is below the official recommendations of the World Health Organization – which recommends drinking your cup of tea at 65 ° C or less.

Drinking tea at 75 ° C further increases the risk.

The coffee is just as bad

Researchers at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences said their results would apply to other hot drinks, including coffee and hot chocolate.

Dr. Farhad Islami, author and senior oncologist, said, "Many people like to drink tea, coffee or other hot drinks.

"However, according to our report, drinking very hot tea can increase the risk of esophageal cancer.
"It is therefore advisable to wait for hot drinks to cool before drinking."

Rates are rising rapidly

Esophageal cancer is a cancer of the diet. The latest statistics show that it affects about 9,200 Britons a year.

People in their sixties and sixties are at higher risk, and it is more common in men than women.

Rates are rising rapidly – by 60% for men over the last 30 years and by 10% for women.

Symptoms may include:

• difficulty swallowing
• persistent indigestion or heartburn
• bring food shortly after eating
• loss of appetite and weight loss
• pain in the upper belly, chest or back.

Survival rates are low – often because they are diagnosed too late.

Wait for your cup of tea to cool down

Dr. Islami said: "It may therefore be a reasonable public health measure to extrapolate these results to all types of drinks and advise the public to wait for the drinks to cool to below 60 ° C. before consuming them ".

The trained staff gathered information on the waiting time between the participants, between the time when the tea is poured and the moment it is drunk, and they liked it warm, lukewarm hot or very hot.

They also prepared two fresh cups of tea at the time – one for the participant and the other for the interviewer – to measure the temperature with the help of a thermometer digital.

When the drink was at 75 ° C, participants were asked to sip tea.

If it was their usual tea drinking temperature or they usually drank tea at higher temperature, this was recorded.

Otherwise, the procedure was repeated allowing the tea to cool to 70 ° C or, if necessary, to lower temperatures (at 5 ° C intervals with the lowest category at 60 ° C).

Dr. Islami said: "To our knowledge, this is the only large-scale prospective study in the world in which the actual temperature of tea consumption has been measured by trained personnel."

The heat hurts the food hose

Researchers believe that heat could injure the esophagus, causing inflammation that can damage the DNA and fuel production of carcinogenic chemicals.

This could also impair its ability to act as a barrier against the harmful toxins of alcohol and tobacco.

In China, Iran, Turkey and South America, tea is traditionally drunk very hot – at around 70 ° C.

Cancer Research UK, spokesperson for the cancer charity group, said most Britons would not drink tea or coffee at such temperatures.

Georgina Hill, head of health information for the charity, said: "This study adds to the evidence that consuming drinks with a temperature above 60 degrees Celsius may increase the risk of esophageal cancer (kitchen pipe), at such high temperatures.

"As long as you let your tea cool a bit before you drink it or add cold milk, it's unlikely that you'll increase your risk of cancer – and not smoke, keep a healthy weight, and reduce your consumption." Alcohol will do a lot more to stack the odds in your favor. "

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