Health chiefs tell us coffee could keep cancer at bay

They once warned it may be carcinogenic, now...

COFFEE could help protect people from cancer, global health chiefs will announce today.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will say there is evidence that drinking coffee regularly may prevent certain types of the disease, such as womb and liver cancer.

Experts are said to have found an ‘inverse relationship’ between coffee consumption and those types of cancer.

In a shock ruling, the cancer-research wing of the WHO will also reverse its previous finding about the dangers of drinking coffee.

In 1991, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) decreed coffee ‘possibly caused cancer’.

But after reviewing academic and scientific research carried out over the last two decades, the WHO will today announce that it is revoking its previous conclusion that the drink could cause bladder cancer.

Instead coffee will be reclassified in WHO rankings, meaning there is insufficient evidence to say it might even possibly cause cancer.

It will move from Group 2B– in which substances are classified as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’ – into Group 3, for substances where there is no evidence of a link to cancer.

The ruling is likely to be a huge boon to Britain’s multi-billion pound coffee industry.

Coffee is drunk by 75 per cent of Britons, and it is also the most popular drink worldwide with around two billion cups consumed every day.

The rulings, revealed to the Daily Mail, come after experts from around the world met in France last month to re-evaluate the health risks of coffee.

They follow other recent research pointing to the health benefits of drinking coffee.

Last November, a study published in the scientific journal Circulation found that regular coffee drinkers had a lower risk of dying early from problems such as heart diseases, diabetes and brain conditions.

Scientists reported that the many compounds in coffee are known to help lower inflammation or insulin resistance. For many years, drinking coffee was deemed to be unhealthy, with experts recommending people drink no more than five cups a day. Much of that concern came from research in the 1970s and 1980s that linked the hot drink to higher rates of cancer and heart disease. The debate became a major topic in 1981, when two publications suggested coffee caused pancreatic cancer.

But crucially, say experts, the studies did not take into consideration that coffee drinkers are also more likely to smoke, possibly drink alcohol and engage in other behaviours that contribute to cancer and heart problems.

More recent studies that account for these factors are starting to find the opposite, showing that coffee drinkers might have a slightly lower mortality risk.

In 2008 it was reported that three cups of coffee a day could reduce women’s risk of developing cancer of the lining of the womb by 62 per cent.

A team at the National Cancer Centre, Japan, found coffee reduces insulin and oestrogen levels, both linked to the cancer’s development.

In 2010, a US study said those who drink four cups of coffee a day are 39 per cent less likely to suffer from oral cancer.

Doctors say people should drink coffee in moderation because caffeine can increase heart rate and blood pressure.

However, the researchers involved in the 2010 study insisted evidence is strong that some of the 1,000 chemicals in coffee – including antioxidants – could offer protection against the cancers. Roel Vaessen, sec- retary general of the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee, a not-for-profit research organisation, said: ‘ISIC welcomes and supports this announcement, which takes into account the large body of new scientific evidence published since IARC last evaluated coffee in 1991.

‘In its latest review, IARC has judged that there is no negative relationship between coffee consumption and cancer.

‘IARC concluded that coffee may actually be protective for some cancers, such as liver and endometrial [womb] cancer.’

In the UK, about 8,475 new cases of womb cancer are diagnosed each year. It is more common in women who have been through the menopause.

Despite being a common type of cancer worldwide, liver cancer is relatively uncommon in the UK, with just over 4,000 new cases diagnosed each year.

‘No negative relationship’