Drinking coffee might result in a better protection against cancer a recent study shows. The effects coffee has on cancer risk are disputable, yet a recently performed study shows that drinking coffee might actually reduce the risk of head and neck cancer. A 39 percent decreased risk of oral cavity and pharynx cancers was observed on coffee drinkers, compared to subjects without this habit.
The study, the results of which were published online in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, shows that regular coffee drinkers, those who drank four or more cups a day, had the decreased risk of cancers. The information was put together from nine studies collected by the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) consortium.
“Since coffee is so widely used and there is a relatively high incidence and low survival rate of these forms of cancers, our results have important public health implications that need to be further addressed,” said lead researcher Mia Hashibe, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and a Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator. “What makes our results so unique is that we had a very large sample size, and since we combined data across many studies, we had more statistical power to detect associations between cancer and coffee.”
The study shows that caffeinated coffee is the one that protected against oral cavity, pharyngeal cancers, while the data collected on decaffeinated coffee showed no increase in risk (detailed analysis was not possible due to sparse information). Head and neck cancer risk is associated with frequent, regular coffee drinkers, while those who drink tea are not included in the data.
Other researchers showed coffee drinking can also reduce the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers. Men drinking most coffee had a 60 percent lower risk of such cancer than those who did not drink coffee. Other studies showed that coffee can reduce the risk of gliomas, or brain tumors. Further proof of the association between caffeinated coffee drinking and cancer risk is provided by Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention editorial board member Johanna W. Lampe, Ph.D., R.D.
“The fact that this was seen for oral and pharyngeal cancers, but not laryngeal cancers, provides some evidence as to a possible specificity of effect,” Lampe commented on the studies. “These findings provide further impetus to pursue research to understand the role of coffee in head and neck cancer prevention,” she added.
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