Very hot drinks pose throat cancer risk: WHO

Drinking very hot beverages can cause cancer regardless of what the drink is, the World Health Organization says. /Courtesy of Twitter

By Lee Jin-a

Drinking very hot beverages -- over 65 degrees Celsius -- can increase the esophagus cancer risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Esophagus cancer is the eighth most common cancer.

After analyzing more than 1,000 scientific studies, researchers classified very hot drinks as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” one level lower than the highest-risk group that includes cigarettes and dioxin.

“Smoking and alcohol drinking are major causes of esophageal cancer, particularly in many high-income countries,” said Christopher Wilde, the director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

“However, the majority of esophageal cancers occur in parts of Asia, South America and East Africa, where the regular drinking of very hot beverages is common and where the reasons for the high incidence of this cancer are not as well understood.”

IARC also classified beverages -- lower than 65 degrees Celsius -- including coffee and tea, as “not carcinogenic to humans.”

IARC said the research found a direct relationship between temperature and throat cancer but could not find a link between the type of drink and cancer.