Coffee and tea consumption tied to lower risk of head and neck cancers

A meta-analysis of data from 14 studies suggests that consumption of coffee and tea is linked to a reduced risk of head and neck cancer, including cancers of the mouth and throat. The findings were published on Dec. 23, 2024 in 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,” said senior author Yuan-Chin Amy Lee, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor for the Division of Public Health in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, as well as a Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator. “Coffee and tea habits are fairly complex, and these findings support the need for more data and further studies around the impact that coffee and tea can have on reducing cancer risk,” she added.

The researchers pooled data from 9,548 subjects diagnosed with head and neck cancer and compared it to data from 15,783 controls without head and neck cancer.

The data came from the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology consortium.

They used standard statistical tools to evaluate the data, and they adjusted it for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors

They reported that when compared with non-coffee-drinkers, subjects who drank more than 4 cups of caffeinated coffee daily had 17% lower odds of having head and neck cancer overall, 30% lower odds of having cancer of the oral cavity, and 22% lower odds of having throat cancer.

Compared with non-coffee-drinkers, those consuming 3–4 cups of caffeinated coffee per day achieved a 41% lower risk of developing hypopharyngeal cancer

Consumption of decaffeinated coffee correlated with a 25% lower risk of developing oral cavity cancer. Consumption of tea correlated with 29% lower risk of developing hypopharyngeal cancer.

Notably, consuming 1 cup or less of tea daily was associated with a 9% lower risk of head and neck cancer overall and a 27% lower risk of hypopharyngeal cancer. But consuming more than 1 cup of tea was associated with a 38% higher risk of developing  laryngeal cancer.

The authors concluded, “These findings support reduced HNC [head and neck cancer] risk among coffee and tea drinkers. Future studies are needed to address geographical differences in types of coffee and tea to improve our understanding of the association of coffee and tea and global HNC risk.”