Yet another Hacker News

Hot coffee could cause oesophageal cancer

16 points vinni2 1 hour ago 17 comments

cogman10 53 minutes ago | parent

dfxm12 53 minutes ago | parent

This new investigation is an analysis of data on the tea- and coffee-drinking habits of nearly 1m adults in Britain. Those who said they preferred their beverages “hot” or “very hot” rather than “warm”, it found, had an increased risk of subsequently developing a type of oesophageal cancer that is called squamous-cell carcinoma.

Headline seems somewhat spurious...

advisedwang 41 minutes ago | parent

This is one area where I thinks self-report is probably fairly accurate. The study also cites some metastudies of other research that shows the same correlation (I don't have access to see if those are based on self-reports)

cogman10 14 minutes ago | parent

Especially since I think there's a pretty easy to understand mechanism for a hot drink to cause cancer.

Hot liquid damages the cells lining your esophagus which potentially damages the DNA of some cell leading to cancer. Pretty much exactly what hard liquors do only using heat instead of ethanol to damage the cells.

cogman10 50 minutes ago | parent

> How hot is too hot? At the time IARC reviewed the scientific evidence, the available data suggested that the cancer risk goes up at drinks temperatures above 65°C. The new British study did not record drinks’ temperatures. Rather, it was up to participants to judge what drink temperature was warm, hot or very hot. Other investigations have found that the typical temperature of hot drinks in Britain and America is around 60°C. The study participants who said they drank their brew “warm” were, therefore, probably sipping it cooler than that. The takeaway message is, though, that the less hot your drink is, the better, says Gill Reeves from Oxford University, one of the study’s authors.

65C translates to ~150F.

mxfh 50 minutes ago | parent

The study is called Hot Drinks and Oesophageal Cancer, so that's all you need to know about this kind of headline.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.70654

dinkleberg 36 minutes ago | parent

"Could" is the ultimate clickbait headline word.

cogman10 18 minutes ago | parent

In some ways I wish that sample size and delta were manditory parts of these sorts of headlines.

Like "In a study of 900,000 people, those that drank their coffee were 5% more likely to develop esophageal cancer".

At very least it'd stop BS like "In a 10 rat study, peppermint oil cured cancer in 10% of the rats" or "Peppermint oil could cure cancer!" as a lot of scientific reporters would phrase it.

reedf1 43 minutes ago | parent

I understand that this is research worth doing, but for the love of god, they need to improve the messaging of this to the general public because, as it currently stands, it's outright hysterical.

AznHisoka 40 minutes ago | parent

What part is hysterical? Because i find it educating and a helpful reminder, as I tend to be impatient and take small sips when its hot

randusername 10 minutes ago | parent

I agree. Sensationalizing "is correlated with increased risk of cancer" to "could cause cancer" undermines the legitimacy of the inquiry and findings and just generally makes everyone dumb.

I'm annoyed I had to go googling around for the baseline rate. At 5 per 100,000 cases of this cancer, does even a 10X increase in risk matter versus having your beverage the way you like? Maybe cut the cream and sugar first.

hgomersall 41 minutes ago | parent

Here's another paper from 2010 which i remember appearing. I guess this is just more evidence: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2773211/

VyseofArcadia 35 minutes ago | parent

I thought this was well known.

Anecdata, but my wife's grandmother famously liked her coffee pretty much scalding, and we did indeed lose her to esophageal cancer.

orev 2 minutes ago | parent

As someone who got top grades in science classes, and a follower of science news for decades, I’ve never heard of temperature being a risk factor for cancer.

That said, it does make sense. Heat can cause damage to cells just like many chemicals can. I just don’t think many people connected the dots.

morninglight 29 minutes ago | parent

猫の舌

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8C%AB%E8%88%8C

ASalazarMX 8 minutes ago | parent

There's an identical expression in Spanish, someone has a "cat's tongue" when they don't tolerate hot food.

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/lengua-de-gato.32275... (Spanish discussion)

But why does Japan write different "cat's tongue" (the body part) than "cat's tongue" (the pastry)?

juancn 19 minutes ago | parent

Any hot beverages: tea, coffee, mate, cocoa, etc.