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Whether it’s warm or cold outside, there’s always room for a cup of hot tea. It is known that hot tea helps people fighting the flu during the winter time, but it is also good during the summer time because it makes you feel colder. However, the delicious beverage appears to damage the oesophagus leading further to oesophageal cancer, according to a new study appearing this week in the British Medical Journal.
According to statistics from the American Cancer Society, cancers of the oesophagus kill more than 500,000 people around the world every year. Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the common type and it is often associated with tobacco, alcohol use, but hot beverages are also considered a potential risk.
The study was done Reza Malekzadeh of the Digestive Disease Research Centre at Tehran University of Medical Sciences and colleagues. Together they looked at 300 people who had been diagnosed with a throat tumor and a matched group of 571 healthy people.
The researchers found that those who drank hot tea were twice as likely to develop throat cancer compared with those who drank warm or lukewarm tea. Hot tea was defined as ranging between 65-69 degrees Celsius, 149-156 degrees Fahrenheit. Warm tea was defined as having 65 C (149F) or less.
“Our results show a strong increase in the risk of OSCC associated with drinking hot or very hot tea,” the researchers said, recommending people should wait a few minutes before enjoying their cup of tea.
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