Drinking Very Hot Beverages Linked to Threefold Higher Oesophageal Cancer Risk: Study
Drinking very hot tea or coffee may significantly increase the risk of a type of oesophageal cancer, with the largest study of its kind finding that drink temperature plays an important role.
Published in the International Journal of Cancer, the study analysed hot-drink habits of nearly 980,000 people in the UK and followed them for more than 14 years. Researchers led by Dr Keren Papier from the University of Oxford examined whether drink temperature and consumption frequency were linked to oesophageal cancer.
People who reported drinking beverages at “very hot” temperatures had about three times the risk of developing oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) compared with those who drank them warm, after accounting for how often they consumed hot drinks.
The study also found that people drinking six or more hot drinks each day had a 71% higher risk of SCC than those consuming fewer than six, after considering drink temperature. However, neither temperature nor frequency showed a clear association with oesophageal adenocarcinoma, another major type of oesophageal cancer.
Very hot drinks may damage cells lining the oesophagus, or foodpipe, through repeated heat exposure. Smoking and alcohol consumption are also major risk factors for oesophageal cancer.
The researchers stressed that participants estimated how hot their drinks were, rather than measuring exact temperatures. This makes the findings less precise and means the study cannot prove that very hot drinks directly cause cancer.
Cancer experts said people do not need to stop drinking tea or coffee but should allow very hot beverages to cool until they are comfortable to drink.
The findings suggest that reducing both the temperature and frequency of very hot drinks could potentially prevent some oesophageal SCC cases. However, more research is needed to understand the relationship and determine how much cooling is beneficial.
REFERENCE: K. Papier, K. Gaitskell, S. Floud, and G. K. Reeves, “ Hot Drinks and Oesophageal Cancer: Prospective Analyses in Around 1 Million UK Adults,” International Journal of Cancer (2026): 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.70654.
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