Drinking steaming hot tea has been linked with an increased risk of oesophageal (food tube) cancer, Iranian scientists have found.
The British Medical Journal study found that drinking black tea at temperatures of 70C or higher increased the risk.
Experts said the finding could explain the increased oesophageal cancer risk in some non-Western populations.
Adding milk, as most tea drinkers in Western countries do, cools the drink enough to eliminate the risk.
The oesophagus is the muscular tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach.
Oesophagus cancers kill more than 500,000 people worldwide each year and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the commonest type.
Tobacco and alcohol are the main factors linked to the development of oesophageal cancers in Europe and America nations.
But it has not been clear why other populations around the world have high rates of the disease although there has been a theory that regularly drinking very hot drinks damage the lining of the gullet.
A litre a day
Golestan Province in northern Iran has one of the highest rates of OSCC in the world, but rates of smoking and alcohol consumption are low and women are as likely to have a diagnosis as men. Tea drinking, however, is widespread.
The University of Tehran researchers studied tea drinking habits among 300 people diagnosed with OSCC and compared them with a group of 570 people from the same area.Read more...
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