Tea, coffee, carbonated soft drinks and upper gastrointestinal tract cancer risk in a large United States prospective cohort study

The authors investigated the relationship between hot tea, iced tea, coffee and carbonated soft drinks consumption and upper gastrointestinal tract cancers risk in the NIH-AARP Study. During 2,584,953 person-years of follow-up on 481,563 subjects, 392 oral cavity, 178 pharynx, 307 larynx, 231 gastric cardia, 224 gastric non-cardia cancer, 123 Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC) and 305 Oesophageal Adenocarcinoma (EADC) cases were accrued. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated by multivariate-adjusted Cox regression. Compared to non-drinking, the hazard ratio for hot tea intake of ⩾1 cup/day was 0.37 (95% CI: 0.20, 0.70) for pharyngeal cancer. The authors also observed a significant association between coffee drinking and risk of gastric cardia cancer (compared to <1 cup/day, the hazard ratio for drinking >3 cups/day was 1.57 (95% CI: 1.03, 2.39)), and an inverse association between coffee drinking and EADC for the cases occurring in the last 3 years of follow-up (compared to <1 cup/day, the hazard ratio for drinking >3 cups/day was 0.54 (95% CI: 0.31, 0.92)), but no association in earlier follow-up. In summary, hot tea intake was inversely associated with pharyngeal cancer, and coffee was directly associated with gastric cardia cancer, but was inversely associated with EADC during some follow-up periods.