Hot Beverages and Oesophageal Cancer

The association between drinking very hot liquids and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) — one of the two main subtypes of oesophageal cancer, the other being adenocarcinoma (AC). The working hypothesis is repeated thermal injury to the oesophageal lining; the drink's chemistry appears irrelevant, since tea and coffee carry the same risk.

Evidence

• IARC, 2016: drinking very hot beverages (above ~65°C) classified as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A), on studies from South America (maté), Asia and Africa, where drinks are taken at ~70°C or hotter. Coffee itself was moved off the carcinogen list at the same time.
• Western populations were uncertain — tea and coffee in the UK and US are typically drunk around 60°C, and a 2001 Swedish case-control study found no association.
• Papier et al., Int J Cancer 2026 (Oxford; Million Women Study + UK Biobank, 977,282 adults, 11–14 years' follow-up, 1,045 SCC and 1,303 AC cases): very hot vs warm drinkers had HR 3.17 (95% CI 2.49–4.03) for SCC and no increased AC risk (HR 0.92). Independently, ≥6 hot drinks a day vs fewer carried HR 1.71 (1.51–1.94) for SCC. Findings held in never-smokers and light drinkers and were not explained by milk. If causal, moving very hot drinkers to hot would avert about 14% of UK SCC cases (~440 a year).

Limits

• Temperature is self-reported in three categories; no study has yet attached a measured threshold to Western drinking habits.
• All evidence is observational; the Oxford estimate of avoidable cases assumes causation.
• The risk is specific to SCC; adenocarcinoma, the commoner subtype in Western countries, shows no temperature link.

Related

• Hot Coffee Could Cause Oesophageal Cancer (Economist) — source page with the full study details.