Coffee drinkers less at risk of head and neck cancers, new research suggests
People who drink more than four cups of coffee a day are less at risk and even decaf coffee is found to have benefits, the analysis says
For most who drink it, coffee is consumed as a stimulant or as part of socialising – morning jolts to open bleary eyes or sipped around tables during conversations with family and friends.
But coffee could have other benefits, going by analysis published in the journal Cancer, from the American Cancer Society, in which researchers point to data suggesting drinkers are less likely to develop cancers of the neck and head than those who abstain.
The head and neck region governs the senses of vision, hearing, smell and taste. A tumour here may affect the ability to speak, eat, swallow and hear.
Cancers of the head and neck are the seventh most common forms of cancer worldwide, with 745,000 new cases and 364,000 deaths in 2020. The Hong Kong Cancer Registry records about 1,500 new cases a year.
According to the research team, led by scientists and doctors at the University of Utah in the United States, people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day “had 17 per cent lower odds of having head and neck cancer overall, 30 per cent lower odds of having cancer of the oral cavity, and 22 per cent lower odds of having throat cancer”.
The investigators compiled information from 14 older studies covering around 9,500 head and neck cancer patients and almost 16,000 cancer-free people.
