Tea and esophageal cancer

This "news" article passed me this morning so I took a few minutes and wrote down my thoughts on the subject at my teasphere.wordpress.com blog. I thought it might spur some discussion so I'll post it here, although I have a feeling most opinions will be similar on it.

Let me start by saying that I don?t put much stock in the myriad health benefits/miracles made about tea, and similarly I disregard ?studies? like this one released today on ABC?s site about a tea/ throat cancer link:

formatting link

I will never understand why folks need to believe a simple drink will somehow cure everything from obesity to bad skin to lack of friends. I drink liters of green and oolong tea every day and I still get sick throughout the year, I?m still a bit overweight, I?m beginning to bald, break out at times? I do have some good friends though. So there?s that. I always say that if all the tea I drink keeps me alive one extra day, then that is one more cup I get to drink. Nothing more, nothing less. However, I don?t blindly ignore the fact that I?ve probably ingested my share of toxic chemicals, heavy metals, pesticides, etc. as I steep and eek out every last drop from my leaf each day. Everything is always in balance. Yin and Yang.

Tea (not to mention tons of other hot beverages) has been drunk in many degrees of temperature for millenia, and to believe that just now it can somehow be definitively linked to throat cancer is laughable at best. It couldn?t be the increase in air pollution and highly evolved mutant sicknesses. It couldn?t be the fact that we?ve been unknowing guinea pigs for so many untested and unregulated ?advances? in the name of a quicker buck like genetically modified foods, chemical additives, or a whole host of other lovely things. It must be hot tea. That?s it. Surely.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.
Loading thread data ...

They list a number of factors. I'd rather work on raising my socio/ economis status and drink my tea at the temperature I want. But then, I like my tea just above lukewarm anyway. Toci

Reply to
toci

I've no idea how good that study was. But to say it's *impossible* that tea-drinking humans over the millennia might have missed a link between tea drinking and incidence of throat cancer - a fairly rare disease - you should bring some evidence along. Humans didn't even notice that microbes caused diseases until the 19th century, after all!

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

But do you honestly see large numbers of cases of throat cancer in Chinese, or English, or Middle Eastern people? And over a prolonged period of time? I know my family (Italian) will only drink coffee or tee if it is "swearing hot" meaning like served just off rapid boil. It's been that way for some time and my great-grandfather lived to

102+ and my grandmother is now 96 and no one has had throat cancer.

I drink things very hot as well, shy of what other members of my family drink but still very very hot. I'll take my chances.

I have read similar studies where scientists try to claim that Koreans suffer from tons more cases of stomach cancer than any other race due to the prolific use of chilis/paste/powder. It's just silly. I guess the Szechuan people are magical.

The point I was, and am, making is that none of these studies can account for the million variables involved here. I'm not saying it is impossible that it may happen, but I am saying it is completely impossible to claim to have a decisive study on any such topic. At best they are anecdotal and junk science, and at worst (as is often the case) supposedly "safe" studied foods and chemicals end up doing massive damage not realized until far too late.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

Yes, you do, though in the cases I heard about, diet in that area may also be a contributing factor.

formatting link
(links to
formatting link
(Chinese language)

w
Reply to
Will Yardley

studies are there to try to link, cause & effect blah blah blah you never know if the risk factors and exposures are going to apply to a person. some smokers never get lung cancer some who never smoked get lung cancer

there is a causal relationship mucosal damage in the esophagus leading to cancer. smoking alcohol smoking+alcohol together are even "worse" offenders hot liquids acid reflux esophageal cancer is a terrible situation.

it just depends how much "risk" you're willing to assume from the "exposures".

i dont drink HOT HOT because i cant really enjoy all the flavor and aromas and then it also burns my tongue so that doesnt help.

Reply to
SN

"The perfect temperature for tea is two degrees hotter than just right". ~ attributed to Terri Guillemets.

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel

I'm well aware that if you want to show one thing causes another, no retrospective study can supply the level of statistical support of a randomized prospective study. But it's a long way from that to calling a given retrospective study "laughable" without going into the details at all. There are good retrospective studies and bad ones. If you asked a medical researcher if it would be better to do away with retrospective studies altogether, you'd get a withering stare.

Look, Dominic, we all live our lives largely guided by intuitions of what's safe and reasonable. It would be impractical to devote conscious thought to every little thing we do. But that doesn't mean our intuitions are always right. And over time, folk wisdom does change, sometimes because of medical research.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

The report in question (quoted in Science Daily) concerns tea as drunk in Iran. From experience most tea offered to me in Iran was from a samovar - concentrate topped up with ever heated water from the spigot

- and yes it was hot (I never actually measured its temperature) but I certainly let it cool before drinking it. I confess that my personal preference is for hot tea and I have always had at the back of my mind the damage that over hot food and beverages can cause on ingestion - some work was published on this years ago relating to esophageal cancer in yerba mate drinkers. The Iran report mentions several temperatures for tea - Warm or Lukewarm (65 deg C or less). Hot tea (65-69 deg C) and Very Hot tea (70 deg C or more) and, in my ignorance I expected when I checked the temperatures of several of my mugs of tea today, to find them Very Hot. Actually I find that what I consider to be "as hot as I can handle" is 62 deg C, and "comfortably hot" is 58 deg C. The Science Daily summary mentions that in the UK there is "an average temperature preference of 56-60 deg C among healthy populations" - which puts me at the hot end of average - but routinely drinking it at 70 deg C plus beggars belief !

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel

I think the reason the Brits dont run around with trachea tubes is because they add cream to their tea or to protect their eggshell porcelain cups whichever comes first.

Jim

Reply to
netstuff

usually tea goes down the esophagus unless you enjoy tea in your lungs- then you choose to snort it into the trachea ;) i seem to like mine no hotter than 55C

Reply to
SN

DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.