Although there are many health benefits associated with drinking tea and coffee, consuming them at too high a temperature may be doing you harm. It may even cause cancer.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently released a report on coffee, finally concluding that coffee could no longer be considered a carcinogen and may have positive effects on your health. There are even signs that it can help reduce your risk of developing liver and uterine cancer.
However, the same report also found that “very hot” beverages “probably” cause cancer.
The findings, recently published in The Lancet Oncology, found that beverages consumed at 65°C are “probably carcinogenic to humans” which could cause people to develop cancer of their oesophagus, the eighth most common form of cancer worldwide.
According to Christopher Wild, Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC): “These results suggest that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of oesophageal cancer and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible.”
Whilst scientists cannot agree on the exact temperature at which damage may be caused, they do have some advice for hot-beverage drinkers around the world:
“Certainly wait a few minutes more before drinking your drink.”
Read more at The Age
Do you drink your tea or coffee too hot? With this information in mind, would you wait a little longer, or stick to your long-held preferences? Do you ever wonder at the almost daily revelations of new medical theories?
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