Piping hot tea gives you cancer
DRINKING piping hot tea can lead to throat cancer, researchers are warning.
Let tea stand for four minutes to cool before drinking it, they advise.
A study has found the risk of oesophageal cancer increased eight-fold as a result of drinking tea with a temperature above 70C.
Drinking tea less than two minutes after pouring led to a five-fold higher risk, compared with drinking four or more minutes after pouring.
Previous UK research recorded an average temperature preference among tea drinkers of 56-60C.
But in northern Iran, where a new study – published in the British Medical Journal – was conducted, large amounts of very hot tea (70C or more) are drunk every day.
And according to the research, northern Iran has one of the highest rates of throat cancer in the world.
Cancer of the oesophagus, the tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach, kills around 7,400 people in Britain each year.
Oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common type. Researchers studied the tea drinking habits of 300 people diagnosed with the cancer and a group of 571 healthy people from the same area. Nearly all drank black tea regularly.
But there was no correlation between the amount of tea and the cancer risk. The key factor was the temperature.
The study authors said: “Our results showed a noticeable increase in risk of OSCC associated with drinking tea hot.”
In an accompanying editorial, David Whiteman from the Queensland Institute of Medical research in Australia said: “These findings are not cause for alarm, however, and they should not reduce public enthusiasm for the time-honoured ritual of drinking tea.”
“Rather, we should follow the advice of Mrs Beeton, who prescribes a five to 10 minute interval between making and pouring tea, by which time the tea will be sufficiently flavoursome and unlikely to cause thermal injury.”
