The act beats hollow well-known causes of oesophageal cancer like chewing tobacco, smoking and excessive alcohol intake.
Don’t drink your tea hot. Your morning cuppa has to be had lukewarm. Drinking hot tea makes you four times more prone to cancer of the oesophagus, or food pipe, says a study conducted by the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH).
The act beats hollow well-known causes of oesophageal cancer like chewing tobacco, smoking and excessive alcohol intake.
According to the case-control study, drinking hot tea causes thermal injury to the oesophageal lining, exposing it for malignancy. (In a case-control study, individuals who have a specific disease — cases — are compared to a group of individuals without the disease — controls.)
The study included 442 cases and 1,628 controls. The data was collected between 1989 and 1992, and analysed over the years. The inference was published in November 2009.
“In India, most of us are used to drinking tea very hot. We found that drinking very hot tea causes harm (to the oesophagus) as compared to drinking lukewarm or warm tea,” said B Ganesh, head of medical records, biostatistics and epidemiology, TMH.
“The incidence of this cancer is thus higher in cold regions such as the Kashmir valley where drinking hot tea is common.” He said the hospital gets about 800 patients with oesophageal cancer every year.
The study, which appeared in the reputed international journal Cancer Epidemiology, states that paan (betel leaf) chewers have 1.1 times the risk of contracting oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, or tumour, in the upper part of the oesophagus; bidi smokers 1.8 times; cigarette smokers 2 times and alcohol drinkers 1.8 times.
While drinking hot coffee was not found to increase the risk, ingestion of hot and spicy food was. Eating fresh fish reduces the risk by 20%.
“The study observed the chewing, smoking, drinking and dietary habits of cancer-affected and cancer-free people,” Ganesh said.
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