COFFEE DRINKERS LESS AT RISK OF HEAD AND NECK CANCERS, NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS

People who drink more than four cups of coffee a day are less at risk and even decaf coffee is found to have benefits, the analysis says

For most who drink it, coffee is consumed as a stimulant or as part of socialising - morning jolts to open bleary eyes or sipped around tables during conversations with family and friends.

But coffee could have other benefits, going by analysis published in the journal Cancer, from the American Cancer Society, in which researchers point to data suggesting drinkers are less likely to develop cancers of the neck and head than those who abstain.

The head and neck region governs the senses of vision, hearing, smell and taste. A tumour here may affect the ability to speak, eat, swallow and hear.

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Cancers of the head and neck are the seventh most common forms of cancer worldwide, with 745,000 new cases and 364,000 deaths in 2020. The Hong Kong Cancer Registry records about 1,500 new cases a year.

According to the research team, led by scientists and doctors at the University of Utah in the United States, people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day "had 17 per cent lower odds of having head and neck cancer overall, 30 per cent lower odds of having cancer of the oral cavity, and 22 per cent lower odds of having throat cancer".

The investigators compiled information from 14 older studies covering around 9,500 head and neck cancer patients and almost 16,000 cancer-free people.

Drinking three to four cups of caffeinated coffee was linked with a 41 per cent lower risk of having hypopharyngeal cancer - a cancer that develops in the lower throat behind the voice box - the team said. They added that even having decaf coffee was associated with 25 per cent lower odds of oral cavity cancer.

Drinking tea was also found to have benefits.

Those who drank up to one cup a day had 9 per cent lower odds of head and neck cancers and 27 per cent lower odds of hypopharyngeal cancer. Tea drinking in general were found to have 29 per cent lower odds of hypopharyngeal cancer.

However, the researchers found that people who drank more than one cup of tea a day were 38 per cent more likely to develop laryngeal cancer.

"While there has been prior research on coffee and tea consumption and reduced risk of cancer, this study highlighted their varying effects with different subsites of head and neck cancer, including the observation that even decaffeinated coffee had some positive impact," said Yuan-Chin Amy Lee of the University of Utah School of Medicine, who was on the research team.

The findings are the latest to suggest possible health benefits from drinking coffee, after scientists at Suzhou University in China published research in 2024 suggesting moderate intake could help prevent diabetes.

In 2023, a team at the University of Verona, in Italy, published research suggesting a link between coffee drinking and slower cognitive decline. A paper that followed similar findings was published in Australia and the US in 2021.

Looking for a new place to find the perfect cup of joe in Hong Kong? Click here to see five newly opened outlets in the city.

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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2025-01-07T11:24:48Z