My husband can’t get his day started without a cup of coffee. For me, it’s a cup (or two) of tea that gets me going.

I don’t worry too much about these habits. My husband takes his coffee black, so there’s no added sugar or calories to worry about. And I like my tea with a splash of unsweetened plant milk, which only adds a few calories and no extra sugar.

Plus, a ton of health benefits are associated with both coffee and tea — including reducing the risk of some types of cancer. And recent research has added this seventh most common cancer to that list…

Coffee, tea and head and neck cancer

Rates of head and neck cancer are rising in low- and middle-income countries, causing investigators to explore ways to combat that increase. Many studies have been conducted to assess whether coffee or tea is linked with head and neck cancer, but results have been inconsistent — until now…

One team of international researchers analyzed more than a dozen of these studies, pooling information on 9,548 patients with head and neck cancer and 15,783 controls without cancer — and what they found was encouraging.

Compared with non-coffee drinkers, people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee daily had a 17 percent lower risk overall of contracting head and neck cancer. They also had 30 percent lower odds of having cancer of the oral cavity and 22 percent reduced odds of having throat cancer.

Drinking three to four cups of caffeinated coffee was linked with a 41 percent lower risk of having hypopharyngeal cancer, a type of cancer that affects the bottom of the throat. Drinking decaffeinated coffee was associated with a 25 percent reduced risk of oral cavity cancer.

As for tea, the news is good too…

Drinking tea was connected with a 29 percent lower risk of hypopharyngeal cancer. Drinking one cup or less of tea daily was linked with a 9 percent lower risk overall of head and neck cancer and a 27 percent lower risk of hypopharyngeal cancer. Interestingly,  drinking more than one cup of tea was associated with 38 percent higher odds of laryngeal cancer.

“While there has been prior research on coffee and tea consumption and reduced risk of cancer, this study highlighted their varying effects with different sub-sites of head and neck cancer, including the observation that even decaffeinated coffee had some positive impact,” says senior author Dr. Yuan-Chin Amy Lee of Huntsman Cancer Institute and the University of Utah School of Medicine.

The power of polyphenols

People around the world consume coffee and tea, and the beverages contain bioactive compounds with potential antioxidant, anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects. These compounds may be key to the anti-cancer benefits.

“We have looked at the literature, and we suspect that perhaps bioactive compounds other than caffeine contribute to this potential anticancer effect of coffee and tea,” Lee says. “Polyphenols found in caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee and tea have exhibited anti-oxidative and anticancer properties that contribute to inhibition of angiogenesis, cell proliferation, cell invasion and metastasis of cancer cells. This bioactive capability of coffee has also been found in lab studies of human cancer cell lines.”

The researchers say their findings support the protective effects of coffee and tea consumption on head and neck cancer risk. They note further studies should determine the effects of coffee and tea consumption in regions beyond North America and Europe, particularly in low- and middle-income countries burdened by head and neck cancer. They should also include different coffee and tea types and processing styles.

To that end, Lee and colleagues hope to extend their research into areas such as the temperature of the beverage, as well as additives such as cream, sugar and milk and the way coffee beans are prepared.

What does all this mean for you? If you’re a coffee or tea lover, this is further proof that your habit is doing you good health-wise. So, you can keep indulging, though you may want to do it without adding tons of milk or sweeteners.

You might want to give your hot tea or coffee time to cool, also. A study from a few years ago found that these drinks consumed at high temperatures were linked to an increase in esophageal cancer.

Sources:

1. Can drinking coffee or tea help prevent head and neck cancer? — EurekAlert!

2. Coffee, Tea Tied to Lower Risk of Head and Neck Cancer — MedPage Today

3. Coffee and tea consumption and the risk of head and neck cancer: An updated pooled analysis in the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology Consortium — Cancer