By Jimmy Downs

Saturday April 27, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- Saturday April 27, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- Drinking coffee may help lower the risk of dying from oral/pharyngeal cancer, according to an American Cancer Society (ACS) study released in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The study shows men and women who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day were 50 percent less likely to die from oral/pharyngeal cancer than those who rarely or only occasionally drank coffee.

Enrolled in the the Cancer Prevention Study II initiated in 1982 by the ACS were 968,432 men and women who were cancer-free at baseline and 868 died from oral/pharyngeal cancer during the 26-year follow-up.  For the study, researchers associated tea and coffee consumption with the risk of death from oral/pharyngeal cancer.

Drinking four or more cups of coffee per day was found associated with a 49 percent reduced risk of death from oral/pharyngeal cancer, compared with drinking no coffee or only occasionally drinking coffee.

Tea and decaffeinated coffee were not associated with risk of death from the cancer.

Previous research has suggested the link between the coffee consumption and the risk of dying from oral pharyngeal cancer.   It is possible that antioxidant chemicals in coffee may help protect against the development of oral/pharyngeal cancer.

Janet Hildebrand, MPH, lead author of the study who is affiliated with the ACS epidemiology research program, was cited as saying that "researchers do not recommend that people drink 4 cups of coffee a day. Although it may be good news for coffee drinkers, more consistent research is needed to demonstrate whether coffee can help with cancer prevention."

A great deal of research has been conducted to explore the potential benefits of coffee while research on the coffee toxicity or safety has not been studied as extensively.  Coffee provides almost zero nutrients and some studies have shown that coffee is highly mutagenic.  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/em.2860090304/abstract

Reference

Hildebrand JS, Patel AV, McCullough ML, et al. Coffee, tea, and fatal oral/ pharyngeal cancer in a large prospective US cohort.. Am J Epidemiol. 2013; 177: 50–58.