A Cancer Cocktail
Recently, a China-based study claims that drinking hot tea, when combined with heavy alcohol and tobacco use, increases the risk of esophageal cancer.
The study followed tea drinking habits of more than 450,000 people aged 30 to 79 over a nine year period. Participants were asked about their tea-drinking habits, and other life-style choices through a questionnaire.
Research findings suggest that those who reported drinking hot or burning-hot tea regularly in addition to excessively drinking alcohol or smoking increased their chances of developing cancer. Excessive drinking was defined as having 15 grams of pure alcohol (slightly more than a 12-ounce glass of beer or 5-ounce glass of wine) every day.
The International Agency for Research (ARC), which is part of the World Health Organization, and the National Toxicology program do not recognize tea as a carcinogen, but did find that hot beverages (at least 149 degrees) “probably” cause cancer.
In response to the study, the Tea Association of the USA released a statement pointing to the health benefits of tea and state that “alcohol and tobacco appear to remain risk factors for esophageal cancer.”
Learn more about this study in the Annals of Internal Medicine (2018)
Leave a reply →
