Drinking Coffee May Protect Against Some Cancers

30 June 2010

Coffee is one of the world's most widely-enjoyed beverages. Flavor aside, scientists have recognized it as a complex blend of chemical compounds with potential health effects, both good and bad. Now, new research suggests that if you drink enough coffee, it might help you avoid certain kinds of cancer.

Coffee is one of the world's most widely-enjoyed beverages. Flavor aside, scientists have recognized it as a complex blend of chemical compounds with potential health effects, both good and bad. Now, new research suggests that if you drink enough coffee, it might help you avoid certain kinds of cancer.

Dr. Mia Hashibe of the University of Utah School of Medicine was interested in the link between coffee drinking and certain cancers of the head and neck. Researchers have looked into this before, but without reaching any firm conclusions.

"There were a few studies, but the findings were not consistent across the studies," she said, "so this finding from our current study was quite a surprise. We didn't really have any expectation of which direction it could go into."

To sort out the confusion, Hashibe and her colleagues used statistical techniques to, in effect, make one big study out of the previous smaller studies.

So we combined data across nine individual studies, so we have a lot more power than previous studies that looked at this. And we included 4,000 cancer patients who have cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx [throat]. And then 9,000 controls, so controls are people who do not have cancer."