Coffee May Lower Risk of Oral Cancer Mortality

Coffee May Lower Risk of Oral Cancer Mortality

Results from a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology suggest that coffee consumption might lower the risk of death from oral/pharyngeal cancer, which is among the 10 most common cancers in the world. According to a team of American Cancer Society researchers, led by Janet S. Hildebrand, MPH, study participants who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day reduced the risk of death from oral cancer by about half compared to those who occasionally or never drank coffee.

The researchers used data compiled from the Cancer Prevention II study, a prospective United States cohort study started by the American Cancer Society in 1982, which includes 968,432 participants. Hildebrand et al looked for associations between oral cancer mortality and coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and tea drinking. Among the subjects—who were all cancer-free when the research began—868 died from oral/pharyngeal cancer over the 26-year duration of the study. They found that participants who drank more than four cups of coffee per day had a 49% reduced risk of death due to oral/pharyngeal cancer compared to those who occasionally partook or abstained altogether. A slight but statistically insignificant association was also found among those who drank more than two cups of decaffeinated coffee per day. No link was determined for those who consumed tea.

“Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, and contains a variety of antioxidants, polyphenols, and other biologically active compounds that may help to protect against the development or progression of cancers,” notes Hildebrand. “Our findings strengthen the evidence of a possible protective effect of caffeinated coffee in the etiology and/or progression of cancers of the mouth and pharynx. It may be of considerable interest to investigate whether coffee consumption can lead to a better prognosis after oral/pharyngeal cancer diagnosis.”

While other epidemiologic studies have suggested that coffee can lower the risk of oral/pharyngeal cancer mortality, the researchers maintain that further research is needed to better understand this association.