A daily hot cuppa can increase risk of developing cancer

DRINKING hot tea can increase the risk of cancer, a study has found.

The disease was already known to be linked to drinking alcohol and smoking, but those risks are heightened by the addition of daily cups of “burning hot” tea, raising the relative risk of developing oesophageal cancer five times.

Oesophageal cancer has poor survival rates. Each year, the disease – which killed Inspector Morse actor John Thaw – is diagnosed in around 9,000 people in the UK, and an estimated 15 per cent of patients who develop the cancer are still alive after five years.

Researchers in China followed the progress of 456,155 participants for nine years. Dr Canqing Yu from the National Natural Science Foundation of China wrote in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine: “Compared with participants who drank tea less than weekly and consumed fewer than 15g of alcohol daily, those who drank burning hot tea and 15g or more of alcohol daily had the greatest risk of oesophageal cancer.”