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Cup of Joe May Lower Risk of Some Oral Cancers

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Consuming 4 or more cups of caffeinated coffee per day significantly lowered risk of death among patients with oral cancer

New study results show that patients who consumed more than 4 cups of caffeinated coffee per day had half the risk of death of oral/pharyngeal cancers compared with those who only occasionally or never drank coffee.

Coffee intake has been associated with a reduced risk of oral/pharyngeal cancer in previous studies. To further explore the findings, researchers assessed caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and tea intake with fatal oral/pharyngeal cancer.

Using the Cancer Prevention Study II, a prospective US cohort study begun in 1982 by the American Cancer Society, researchers investigated 968,432 men and women who were cancer-free at enrollment. During 26 years of follow-up, 868 deaths occurred due to oral/pharyngeal cancer. The researchers found that consuming more than 4 cups of caffeinated coffee per day was associated with a 49% lower risk of oral/pharyngeal cancer death when compared with occasional or no coffee intake. The association was independent of sex, smoking status, or alcohol use, and a decline in relative risk was detected with each cup consumed per day. For those who drank more than 2 cups per day of decaffeinated coffee, the reduction in risk was only marginally significant, and no association was found for tea drinking.

“Coffee…contains a variety of antioxidants, polyphenols, and other biologically active compounds that may help to protect against development or progression of cancers,” said lead author Janet Hildebrand, MPH. “Our finding strengthens the evidence of a possible protective effect of caffeinated coffee in the etiology and/or progression of cancers of the mouth and pharynx.”

The study is published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Source: ACS.