Can Drinking Hot Tea Cause Cancer?

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Can Drinking Hot Tea Cause Cancer?

29 March 2009 6 Comments

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Recently, Fox News reported that there is some evidence that drinking hot tea can lead to throat cancer. In previous studies on cancer of the esphogus, the British Medical Journal suggested that scalding hot beverages may contribute to tumors. But before you throw out all of your tea, it appears to be the hotness of the temperature that causes throat cancer, not the tea itself. Tea does have many health benefits.
It is still not clear why hot tea causes cancer but it appears that when the throat is repeatedly exposed to hot liquid it causes injury to the lining of the throat.

A study of 871 people in Northern Iran looked at their tea-drinking habits. The region studied has one of the highest rates of throat cancer in the world. In the group, 300 had cancer of the esophagus, while the remaining 571 subjects were healthy. Almost everyone in the study drank on average a liter of black tea each day.

That region has one of the highest rates of throat cancer in the world but smoking rates and alcohol consumption are low, the researchers said. Nearly all the volunteers drank black tea regularly, consuming on average more than a liter each day. The study found that drinking hot tea increased the likelihood of getting cancer 5 times more than those who waited 4 or more minutes before drinking. What is the bottom line? No matter what the beverage is, don’t drink it scalding hot. Wait a few minutes for your beverages to cool down before drinking them. It doesn’t appear to be the tea itself that causes the cancer, but the hotness of the temperature of the tea. Check out this video on the dangers of drinking hot tea.

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6 Comments »

Aswani said:

Well, I think people should avoid taking tea, coffee and cold drinks. All of these are injurious to health in some or the other way. Thats purely based on my experience. Anyways, a very informative post. keep it up

# 30 March 2009 at 10:01 am

admin (author) said:

Thanks for your comment Aswani. Don’t get rid of tea and coffee because they have a lot of antioxidants…just drink them warm, not scalding hot. Thanks again for your feedback!

# 30 March 2009 at 11:23 am

shadowmon87 said:

Well, everything causes cancer on the long run.
Even the sun causes cancer!
We don’t need to drop everything that people/scientists claims causes cancer otherwise we wouldn’t expose ourselves anymore.
Just follow the advice of waiting the drink (probably not only tea but also coffee and others) to cool down a little. Not too much, of course. Also, another thing, hot drinks helps you to digest carbohydrates so it’s recommended to drink hot tea (like the post said, hot, not scalding hot) after you eat to help the digestive process.

# 31 March 2009 at 5:15 pm

wii-controller said:

thanks very useful article and this post is very knowlegdeable

# 7 May 2009 at 6:40 am

Jake said:

If its not obvious now, nearly everything causes cancer. Standing outside when the sun is out causes cancer. People need to get their heads out of their auschwitz’s and realize that do what you want to do even if it is a bit unhealthy and to quit being subject to the liberal media’s scare tactics.

# 7 August 2009 at 9:29 pm