Risks: Coffee Linked to Fewer Oral Cancer Deaths

A large study has found that drinking coffee is associated with a reduced risk of death from oral cancer.

Researchers studied 968,432 initially healthy men and women beginning in 1982. All completed questionnaires on health and dietary habits, including amounts of tea and coffee consumed, at the start of the study period. Twenty-six years later, 868 people had died of oral or throat cancer.

After adjusting for smoking, alcohol consumption and other factors, the researchers found that the risk of death from oral or throat cancer was 26 percent lower among those who drank one cup a day, 33 percent lower among those who drank two to three cups daily, and 50 percent lower among those who drank four to six cups daily, compared with those who drank no caffeinated coffee.

There was a barely significant association of decaffeinated coffee with reduced risk, and no link at all to tea. The report was posted online this month in The American Journal of Epidemiology.