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If you are among those who enjoy a steaming hot cuppa, we have some not-very-good news for you. According to experts, drinking very hot beverages may “put you at risk for oesophageal cancer due to thermal and chemicals injuries to the oesophageal mucosa”, said Dr Shrey Srivastav, MD (Internal Medicine), Sharda Hospital, Noida. However, he added that some additional factors must be considered before establishing a direct relationship.
Concurred Dr Parag Dashatwar, senior gastroenterologist and hepatologist, Kamineni Hospitals, Hyderabad, and mentioned that some studies hypothesise that drinking hot beverages, such as coffee or tea, could injure the inner lining of the food pipe (oesophageal epithelium).
“During the process of healing from this injury, the oesophageal cells need to regenerate. During these repeated cycles of injury and healing, epithelial cells may become permanently damaged and turn cancerous. But these studies used beverages with temperatures much higher than what people would typically drink,” said Dr Dashatwar citing a 2016 study from the International Agency for Research on Cancer under World Health Organization (WHO).
Published in The Lancet Oncology, the study noted that in countries like China, Iran, and Turkey where traditionally tea is drunk very hot (at about 70 °C), the risk of oesophageal cancer increased with the increase in temperature.
Types of cancers that can be associated with the oesophagus are oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC).
However, Dr Srivastav said that there is no evidence that “hot liquids alone will increase oesophageal cancer risk”. Dr Dashatwar too agreed and said, “Real-world evidence is not so clear. There are no experimental studies to determine the harmful temperatures of a beverage, its dose (volume) and the time duration over which it is consumed. Studies done so far are observational in nature. Populations in these studies tend to have more exposure to other risk factors of cancer, such as tobacco, alcohol, betel nuts, smoked meat consumption, poor nutrition and hygiene as well as high exposure to environmental contaminants. The presence of these other factors makes it hard to be certain that hot tea alone was responsible for the increased risk. At this point, it is only a suggestion that hot drinks might make the risk higher in people who also use tobacco or consume alcohol,” said Dr Dashatwar.
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