Heat, not coffee, may cause cancer

Switch to an iced latte then.

Coffee poses no cancer risk; it’s the extreme heat of the beverage, or any other drink for that matter, that may be dangerous when drank, according to an international working group of scientists convened by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The scientists concluded that coffee should no longer be considered a carcinogen. It however found limited evidence that drinking very hot beverages could cause esophageal cancer.

“[It is suggested] that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of esophageal cancer, and that it is the temperature rather than the drinks that appears to be responsible,” said Christopher Wild, director of WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Wild said the working group found no conclusive evidence of a carcinogenic effect from drinking coffee.

The WHO cited studies conducted in places like China, Iran, Turkey and South America, where coffee and tea are traditionally drank very hot.

The findings suggested that the risk of esophageal cancer increased with the temperature at which the beverage was drunk.

“Smoking and alcohol drinking are major causes of esophageal cancer, particularly in many high-income countries,” according to Wild.

High incidence

“However, the majority of esophageal cancers occur in parts of Asia, South America and East Africa, where regularly drinking very hot beverages is common and where the reasons for the high incidence of this cancer are not as well understood,” he said.

The WHO said esophageal cancer is the eighth most common cause of cancer worldwide and one of the main causes of cancer deaths, with 400,000, nearly five percent of all cancer deaths, recorded in 2012.

The WHO said the number of esophageal cancer cases that could be linked to drinking very hot beverages was not known.

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Link between tallness, higher cancer risk—study

PARIS, France—Being tall is linked to a higher risk of cancer, especially for women, said research Thursday drawn from physical and health data for five million people in Sweden.

For every 10 centimeters (four inches) over one meter in height, the odds of developing cancer increased by 10 percent in men and 18 percent in women, the research team reported at a medical conference in Barcelona.

A Swedish woman 1.72 m (six feet) tall, for example, was about a third more likely to contract cancer than a woman of 1.52 m.

The findings, which have not been published in a scientific journal, support similar links found in other studies between height and elevated cancer risk—but the researchers said their work was based on the largest group of men and women yet.

It was not clear if their findings would translate to people who live in different climates, with different diets and genetic backgrounds.

The findings, unveiled at a meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, looked at birth, health and military records of 5.5 million people born between 1938 and 1991. The tallest was 2.25 m in adulthood.

It found that for every extra 10 cm, a woman had a 20-percent higher risk of breast cancer, while there was a jump of 30 percent for every 10 cm in melanoma risk for both genders.

A United States study in 2013, done among only women, had found a 13 percent higher risk of developing certain cancers for each 10 cm of height.

The new research was met with some scepticism by outside experts who questioned the methodology, and stressed there was a much stronger cancer risk link with factors such as genetics or obesity.

Rather than tallness “causing” an elevated cancer risk, factors like growth hormones may be influencing both traits, they pointed out.

“It sounds an odd relationship at first glance, but it is actually very plausible that the risk of cancer in a person should be related to the number of cells in their body, since that determines the number of cells ‘at risk,'” Dorothy Bennett, a scientist at University of London said in comments issued by the Science Media Centre.

“A cancer arises by mutations from a single normal cell. Bigger people have more cells.”

Mel Greaves, a researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, added: “Tall people shouldn’t worry that they are destined to get cancer.”

source: technology.inquirer.net