Although coffee isn’t cancerous, make sure to let it sit before you sip
WHO offers up some good news for your morning brew, but beware ‘very hot’ drinks
If you enjoy a cup of Joe in the morning, you’ll be happy to know that the World Health Organization released its long-anticipated report on coffee, and its findings bode well for your health.
In reviewing scientific evidence over the past 25 years since its last analysis on the matter, the WHO concluded coffee should no longer be considered a carcinogen and that it may actually have positive effects for your body when it comes to two types of cancers: liver and uterine cancers.
Now before you start ordering that second steaming cup, it’s important to know the report wasn’t all good news. There was another significant finding: “Very hot” beverages “probably” cause cancer.
This is mostly based on studies related to the consumption of a traditional drink called mate or cimarron in South America where the tea can be taken at temperatures around 70 C.
That’s significantly hotter than people in North America or Europe usually consume their drinks.
The findings were published in The Lancet Oncology on Wednesday.
“These results suggest that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of esophageal cancer and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that ap- pears to be responsible,” said Christopher Wild, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
In a conference call with reporters, Wild and other officials were unable to quantify the risk. “We can’t put a number on it at this stage,” they said.
But they had some practical advice for people who consume hot beverages.
“Certainly wait a few minutes more before drinking your drink,” the IARC said.
The decision to reclassify coffee is a major victory for the industry, which has been aggressively lobbying for such an action. For organizations, such as the WHO, that are charged with protecting the public’s health, it’s often politically trickier to say a product causes no harm than to say a product causes harm — even for one as beloved as coffee.
In the United States, when a federal advisory committee issued recommendations regarding the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in 2015 and said coffee could be part of a “healthy diet,” there was a significant backlash. The new U.S. recommendations, officially issued in January, say that up to five eight-ounce cups a day are fine.
The National Coffee Association cheered the WHO finding, pointing out that it’s the first time a foodstuff or beverage has ever been positively reclassified by the scientists.
“Coffee drinkers have known for a long time that their go-to beverage is a superfood,” association president Bill Murray said in a statement. “Today we can brew or buy a cup with even more confidence thanks to science.”
“More confidence” are the key words here: Science is a moving target, especially in terms of food, as bodies making recommendations about what people consume have tended to flip-flop in recent years.
The WHO working group said it reviewed more than 1,000 studies in humans and animals in making its decision, and that there was “inadequate evidence” for the carcinogenicity of coffee drinking overall.
It noted that epidemiological studies mentioned no impact of coffee drinking, specifically on cancers of the pancreas, prostate and female breast. Reduced risks were seen for cancers of the liver and uterine endometrium. For other types of cancer, the evidence was inconclusive.