Link found between drinking coffee and colon cancer

A new study has found that coffee drinkers have a much lower risk of bowel cancer recurrence. People with bowel cancer who drink two to four cups of coffee a day are much less likely to experience a recurrence of their disease.

The study shows that people with the condition who consume this much caffeine are also much less likely to die from any cause, suggesting coffee may be helping those diagnosed with the UK’s second leading cancer.

According to The Guardian, experts called the findings “promising” and suggested that if other studies show the same effect, the 43,000 Britons a year diagnosed with bowel cancer could be encouraged to drink coffee. The disease claims about 16,500 lives a year – 45 a day.

A study of 1,719 bowel cancer patients in the Netherlands by Dutch and British researchers found that those who drank at least two cups of coffee had a lower risk of disease recurrence. The effect depended on the dose—those who drank the most had the greatest risk reduction.

According to an article funded by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and published in the International Journal of Cancer, patients who drank at least five cups a day were 32% less likely to have bowel cancer recurrence than those who drank less than two. cups.

Likewise, higher levels of coffee consumption also seemed to be closely linked to someone’s chances of survival.

Again, those who drank at least two cups per day had a lower risk of death compared to those who did not. And, as with the risk of relapse, those who drank at least five cups had the greatest reduction in their likelihood of dying, by 29%.

People in the UK drink an estimated 95 million cups of coffee a day, writes The Guardian.

Study team leader Dr Ellen Kampman, professor of nutrition and disease at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said the disease returns in one in five people diagnosed and can be fatal.

“Intriguingly, this study suggests that drinking three to four cups of coffee may reduce the recurrence of bowel cancer.”

However, she stressed that the team found a strong association between regular coffee consumption and the disease, rather than a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.

“However, we are hopeful that this finding is real because it appears to be dose dependent—the more coffee you drink, the stronger the effect,” Dr. Kapman added.

This is the latest study to show that coffee reduces the risk of cancer, notes The Guardian. There is already strong evidence that it reduces the risk of liver and uterine cancer, and some evidence that it does the same for cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and skin. It is also already associated with a lower risk of developing bowel cancer.

Professor Mark Gunther, co-author of the study and head of the department of cancer epidemiology and prevention at Imperial College London’s school of public health, said the results were “very provocative because we don’t really understand why coffee might have this effect on bowel cancer patients.”

He added: “But they are also promising because they may point to a way to improve the prognosis and survival of patients with bowel cancer. Coffee contains hundreds of bioactive compounds that have antioxidant properties and may protect against colon cancer. Coffee also reduces inflammation and insulin levels, which have been linked to the development and progression of bowel cancer, and may have potentially beneficial effects on the gut microbiome. However, we need more research to gain deeper insight into the biology of why coffee may have such an impact on bowel cancer prognosis and survival.”

The World Cancer Research Fund identified chlorogenic acid, also found in cabbage, as a substance that could be a key part of the explanation due to its role in regulating the body’s glucose and insulin levels.

The emergence of coffee as a potential cancer protector is notable because the World Health Organization classified it as “possibly carcinogenic” until 2016, before changing its mind because there was no evidence to support it.