Drinking Very Hot Tea or Coffee Could Triple Oesophageal Cancer Risk, Major Oxford-Led Study Finds

What happened

A large study led by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Population Health department has found that people who habitually drink their tea or coffee “very hot” face roughly three times the risk of developing a specific type of oesophageal (food-pipe) cancer compared with those who drink their beverages warm. The research, led by nutritional epidemiologist Dr Keren Papier, was published this week in the International Journal of Cancer and is among the largest studies of its kind — tracking nearly 980,000 adults in the United Kingdom for up to 14 years.

The study combined data from two long-running UK research projects, the Million Women Study and the UK Biobank. Over the follow-up period, 2,348 participants developed oesophageal cancer. When researchers separated cases by cancer type, they found that drink temperature was strongly linked to oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) — the most common form of the disease worldwide — but not to oesophageal adenocarcinoma, the other major subtype. People who drank six or more hot beverages a day, independent of temperature, also showed a 71 percent higher risk of SCC compared with those who drank fewer than six.

Why it matters to readers

This finding has particular relevance well beyond Britain. Tea and coffee served scalding hot — often straight off the stove or urn — are everyday habits across much of India, Iran, South America, and other regions, and earlier research from those parts of the world had already flagged a similar pattern. What makes the new study notable is that it confirms the same risk exists even in a Western population that generally drinks its tea and coffee cooler, strengthening the case that it is the heat itself, not any single beverage or culture’s brewing style, that raises risk.

The World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), already classifies beverages consumed above 65°C as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” This new study adds fresh, large-scale evidence behind that classification, at a time when oesophageal cancer causes hundreds of thousands of deaths globally each year.

Background and context

Oesophageal SCC develops in the flat cells lining the food pipe and is believed to be linked to repeated thermal injury — essentially, heat damage to the lining of the oesophagus that, over years, can contribute to the development of cancerous cells. Alcohol use and smoking remain the two biggest known risk factors for this cancer, but drink temperature has been studied as an independent contributor for over a decade, with earlier findings coming mainly from Iran, China, and South America, where tea and mate are traditionally drunk very hot.

Dr Papier noted that most previous large studies came from populations with very different tea-drinking habits, so it was unclear whether the same association would hold in a country like the UK, where drinks are typically served somewhat cooler. The new results suggest it does — and by extension, the mechanism likely applies wherever people habitually drink very hot beverages, regardless of local customs.

Key facts and data

• The study followed close to 980,000 adults — roughly half from the Million Women Study (14-year average follow-up) and half from the UK Biobank (11-year average follow-up).
• Participants who reported drinking their beverages “very hot” had about three times the risk of oesophageal SCC compared with those who drank them “warm”; those who drank them “hot” (an intermediate category) had around 1.7 times the risk.
• Drinking six or more hot beverages daily was linked to a 71 percent higher SCC risk after accounting for temperature, though this frequency showed little association with the other cancer subtype (adenocarcinoma).
• Adding milk to the drink did not change the association, as long as the beverage was still consumed hot.
• Despite the sharp relative increase, oesophageal SCC remains a comparatively rare cancer: researchers noted the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with it in the UK is around 1 percent, and it accounts for roughly 2 percent of UK cancer cases overall. Alcohol and tobacco use remain larger contributors to overall oesophageal cancer risk than drink temperature alone.

What readers should actually do

Doctors and researchers involved in the study are not telling people to stop drinking tea or coffee — the advice is far simpler: let hot drinks cool for a few minutes before drinking, particularly if a beverage is uncomfortably hot to sip. Most tea and coffee is naturally consumed at 50–60°C, below the 65°C threshold IARC flags as risky, so the concern applies mainly to beverages served or consumed piping hot, straight after brewing.

This is a single (if large and well-designed) observational study, and it shows an association, not direct proof that hot drinks cause cancer in every individual case. People who regularly experience difficulty swallowing, persistent heartburn, unexplained weight loss, or chest discomfort after eating or drinking should consult a doctor for proper evaluation rather than self-diagnose based on this research. As with most cancer-risk findings, the practical takeaway is behavioural moderation — letting a cup cool a little — rather than alarm.