Hot coffee could cause oesophageal cancer | Hacker News Reader

Hot coffee could cause oesophageal cancer

economist.com

24 pointsvinni223 comments

> How hot is too hot? At the time IARC reviewed the scientific evidence, the available data suggested that the cancer risk goes up at drinks temperatures above 65°C. The new British study did not record drinks’ temperatures. Rather, it was up to participants to judge what drink temperature was warm, hot or very hot. Other investigations have found that the typical temperature of hot drinks in Britain and America is around 60°C. The study participants who said they drank their brew “warm” were, therefore, probably sipping it cooler than that. The takeaway message is, though, that the less hot your drink is, the better, says Gill Reeves from Oxford University, one of the study’s authors.

65C translates to ~150F.

I once scalded my mouth on hot cocoa that had been (over) heated in a microwave.

Now, I carefully measure temperatures with a thermometer and have learned that 160F is a perfect pouring temperature, assuming it will be poured into a room temperature ceramic mug where it quickly cools into the 150F range. This temperature is pleasant for sipping and probably about the range where most people enjoy their coffee.

The study is called Hot Drinks and Oesophageal Cancer, so that's all you need to know about this kind of headline.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.70654

"Could" is the ultimate clickbait headline word.

In some ways I wish that sample size and delta were manditory parts of these sorts of headlines.

Like "In a study of 900,000 people, those that drank their coffee were 5% more likely to develop esophageal cancer".

At very least it'd stop BS like "In a 10 rat study, peppermint oil cured cancer in 10% of the rats" or "Peppermint oil could cure cancer!" as a lot of scientific reporters would phrase it.

Every time I read “could” my brain automatically also says “could not!” lol “hot beverages could _not_ cause oesophageal cancer”

I know very hot beverages are group 2A probable carcinogen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_2A

This new investigation is an analysis of data on the tea- and coffee-drinking habits of nearly 1m adults in Britain. Those who said they preferred their beverages “hot” or “very hot” rather than “warm”, it found, had an increased risk of subsequently developing a type of oesophageal cancer that is called squamous-cell carcinoma.

Headline seems somewhat spurious...

This is one area where I thinks self-report is probably fairly accurate. The study also cites some metastudies of other research that shows the same correlation (I don't have access to see if those are based on self-reports)

Especially since I think there's a pretty easy to understand mechanism for a hot drink to cause cancer.

Hot liquid damages the cells lining your esophagus which potentially damages the DNA of some cell leading to cancer. Pretty much exactly what hard liquors do only using heat instead of ethanol to damage the cells.

Same applies to anything too hot, no matter if green tea, or anything else. It's stressing your cells, and over time they'll lose their shiny new shine. Considering how breakdown caused by fever begins at over 42°C, cautious conduct would be avoiding anything over 33 to 37°C. It's that simple.

"The evidence from human studies is based on observational data (which cannot prove that the link with cancer is causal). But experimental studies in animals point in the same direction."

in mice strikes again

猫の舌

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8C%AB%E8%88%8C

There's an identical expression in Spanish, someone has a "cat's tongue" when they don't tolerate hot food.

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/lengua-de-gato.32275... (Spanish discussion)

But why does Japan write different "cat's tongue" (the body part) than "cat's tongue" ラング・ド・シャ (the pastry)?

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E3...

Katakana (the above character set representing syllables) is used for words of foreign origin, which this pastry is. In turn it stems from French « langue de chat ».

I thought this was well known.

Anecdata, but my wife's grandmother famously liked her coffee pretty much scalding, and we did indeed lose her to esophageal cancer.

As someone who got top grades in science classes, and a follower of science news for decades, I’ve never heard of temperature being a risk factor for cancer.

That said, it does make sense. Heat can cause damage to cells just like many chemicals can. I just don’t think many people connected the dots.

I did biomed in uni 10 years ago and they did indeed speak about this as a risk factor in my clinical microbiology class.

I assumed that was what gave my dad throat cancer because he was always gulping down hot coffee but the cause was something else in the end.

Any hot beverages: tea, coffee, mate, cocoa, etc.

https://archive.is/c2mcm

Here's another paper from 2010 which i remember appearing. I guess this is just more evidence: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2773211/

I understand that this is research worth doing, but for the love of god, they need to improve the messaging of this to the general public because, as it currently stands, it's outright hysterical.

What part is hysterical? Because i find it educating and a helpful reminder, as I tend to be impatient and take small sips when its hot

I agree. Sensationalizing "is correlated with increased risk of cancer" to "could cause cancer" undermines the legitimacy of the inquiry and findings and just generally makes everyone dumb.

I'm annoyed I had to go googling around for the baseline rate. At 5 per 100,000 cases of this cancer, does even a 10X increase in risk matter versus having your beverage the way you like? Maybe cut the cream and sugar first.

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