Friday, October 22, 2010

For your throat and mouth


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Drinking coffee may protect against mouth and throat cancers, research suggests.
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Four or more cups of coffee a day can reduce the combined risk of both diseases by 39 per cent, it is claimed.
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Scientists pooled information from nine studies of head and neck cancers comparing regular coffee drinkers and those who avoided coffee.
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They found a strong association between frequent coffee drinking and lower rates of oral cavity and pharynx (mouth and throat) cancers.
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Tea consumption had no effect on head and neck cancer risk, and data on decaffeinated coffee was too sparse to be of use.
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Dr Mia Hashibe, the lead researcher, from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, said: Since coffee is so widely used and there is a relatively high incidence and low survival rate of these forms of cancers, our results have important public health implications that need to be further addressed.
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What makes our results so unique is that we had a very large sample size, and since we combined data across many studies, we had more statistical power to detect associations between cancer and coffee.
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The findings are reported online by the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
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Dr Johanna Lampe, a member of the journal's editorial board, said:
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These findings provide further impetus to pursue research to understand the role of coffee in head and neck cancer prevention.
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John von Radowitz

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