Why  Drinking  of Hot Liquids is not Good Idea




- Grandma has been saying for an eternity that drinking hot liquids is not a good idea and now some medical research may just be on her side.

Disadvantages of Drinking Hot Coffee & Tea

Let's talk about it on this week's Wednesday Checkup.

Last week they were headlines popping up all across the Media Television, YouTube, Twitter.

I was being flooded by messages of people telling me that hot tea can increase your rate of cancer.

Being someone who's a huge fan of green tea, I was confused. What I'm gonna do in this video is translate to you what the research was that they conducted, what the findings were and how they apply to you or is this a case of media sensationalism.

I feel like we should always get our biases out into the open before we speak. I've always been taught even as a child by my father who's a physician that drinking hot liquids is very bad.

 If I drink soup that was too hot, my dad would say bad idea. If I drink tea that was hot, he would say bad idea.

This study took 50,000 individuals living in the Northeast part of Iran, aged 40 to 75, interviewed them, conducted a bunch of surveys and followed them for a period of 10 years.

 

What's positive about this?

 

Well, it's a great sample size, 50,000 individuals solid age distribution and a period of 10 years is also a very good sample size.

You're gonna get a lot of quality info from a lot of people over a lot of human life years.

The next thing that popped into my head was how did they measure the temperature of the tea that people were drinking over 10 years?

What they did was, they would bring in the people that are gonna be participating in the study, they would brew two cups of tea, one for the interviewer, one for the interviewee, they would have a thermometer inside the tea wait for the tea to drop to about 167 degrees Fahrenheit, ask the participant to take a sip and ask them if that's the normal temperature of the tea that they drink.

If not, they would let it drop by five degrees Celsius and continue doing that process until they reach a temperature that they feel they can drink the tea comfortably and that it matches their daily habits.

Now we have to say this method is not perfect, 'cause over a period of 10 years, maybe their preferences can change but this is an objective way of measuring it, as opposed to just asking the question, do you prefer your team mild, cold, very hot, hot?

There's a lot of room for interpretation there. If you put a thermometer in and you get a person's response as to whether or not this is the type of tea they drink, that is way more objective than just handing them a survey.

Let's jump in and look at the results of the study right off the bat. They found that the participants who drink 700 MLS, which is about three cup full of tea a day at a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit or higher actually increased their risk of developing esophageal cancer by 90%.

For those of you who don't know, esophageal cancer is cancer of the esophagus, the tube that connects the throat to the stomach.

These findings did not surprise the researchers and other doctors alike because we've been saying for a long time that drinking very hot beverages is not ideal for our bodies.

The theories behind that is that the thermal damage or just the burn that can actually happen inside our esophagus can lead to more inflammation, which leads to DNA damage leading to cancer.

Another explanation for this could be that the thermal or burning damage

actually inhibits esophagus from protecting itself thereby making it susceptible to carcinogens that appear within our bodies every single day.

But, but, but, but and this is a very important but. I have to make it known right now, they did not establish a cause and effect relationship here,

they did not prove that drinking hot tea directly will cause esophageal cancer or directly will have an impact on this esophageal cancer.

They did a study observing people's behavior and try to link that behavior to outcomes.

This is called a correlation or an association. So it's not as strong as a cause and effect principle because there could be confounding factors at play.

Those who drink hot tea also tended to be older males, live in rural areas, be poor so could that have contributed to their increased risk of cancer?

It's possible, that's why a correlation study is never as powerful as a cause and effect study.

Now, although there is no cause and effect relationship, this correlation should still bring some useful knowledge to us because we have to think about risks versus benefits.

There is no benefit and there's just never been even discussed the benefit in drinking liquids, whether it be soup, tea or coffee at temperatures above 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

So if I can tell you to let your tea cool down below 140 and that will possibly maybe even likely, depending on the strength of this correlation, decrease your likelihood of developing cancer, it seems like that should be the wise thing to do.

If you disagree with me jump into the comments section, we'll duke it out.

I know the temperature that these things are brewed at, let's talk about it.

Green tea, 175 degrees Fahrenheit, black tea, 210 degrees Fahrenheit, herbal tea, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, coffee, around 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

All of those are above that 140 degree Fahrenheit margin and if you drink them too quickly after brewing, not only are you gonna possibly burn your mouth but you could also be increasing your risk of esophageal cancer, amongst others,.

I also have a little bit of concern when it comes to some products

that are currently out in the market.

I know there's a lot of these mugs that can keep your coffee or tea automatically warm, because there are electric devices that you can charge and so forth but the temperature ranges at which they can keep your tea hot to can get past 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

So maybe these companies should take a look at this research and say,

well, we're gonna aim to keep your tea warm and hot, but not above 140 degrees Fahrenheit 'cause there's some research linking this to increased risk of cancer.

My final takeaway on this study is exactly as I said before, there's no risk for letting your tea or coffee cool just a little bit before drinking it.

Use some common sense, don't burn your mouth and understand that if you're burning your mouth you're also definitely burning your esophagus.

Don't increase your risk of cancer unnecessarily, let it cool, be smart, but also understand that this isn't perfect research and that there's still more research to be done to understand what types of tea, what types of coffee at what exact temperatures, how does it change between different sexes or different populations and that's what's exciting about medicine, the fact that we will always be doing more research and we will be understanding our bodies more and more.

This is where I get to have fun.

And if you wanna know the right way to drink green tea and all the health benefits it may have to offer click here for my green tea video

and as always, stay happy and healthy.