Cancer coffee

NB There is some evidence of an inverse relationship between coffee drinking and cancer of the large bowel coffee drinking could not be classified as to its carcinogenicity to other organs)... 

Canada based, other cancers, < 10 years 2/NG 0-3 O.l-i.2 Lucome. smoking, coffee... 

Coffee, Tea, Cancer and Fibrocystic Breast Disease Gene A. Splller and Bonnie Bruce... 

Coffee is grown in countries situated between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. C. arabica is the most widely grown, but regions where temperature and humidity are rather high have been replanted with C. canephora var. robusta. Robusta coffees are thus the major species grown in the less mountainous regions closest to the equator. 

Lam, L. K. T., Sparnins, V. L., Wattenberg, L. W., Isolation and identification of kahweol palmitate and cafestol palmitate as active constituents of green coffee beans that enhance glutathione-S transferase activity in the mouse, Cancer Res., 42, 1193, 1982. (CA96 198149d)... 

Although earlier work had showed a positive association between coffee consumption and pancreatic cancer rates across countries,2 it was the much-publicized case-control study of MacMahon et al.3 in 1981 that attracted widespread attention to the question of a possible link. In that study, which was designed primarily to investigate the role of smoking and alcohol in pancreatic cancer, 369 pancreatic cancer patients prior to diagnosis and 644 hospital controls reported their typical daily coffee and tea consumption. Unexpectedly, the authors found a significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer associated with coffee consumption (overall rela-... 

A few years later in 1983, Whittemore and colleagues11 analyzed data on 50,000 former male students who had attended Harvard University between 1916 and 1950. In a 16 to 50 year follow-up, they compared coffee and tea drinking practices of 126 men in the college cohort, who had subsequently died of pancreatic cancer, with those of 504 surviving class-... 

In an early study in 1971, Cole22 found an association between coffee drinking and lower urinary tract cancer based on a case-control study of 445 cancer patients (345 men, 100 women) and 451 population controls who were matched for age and sex. The analyses had controlled for cigarette smoking and occupation however, there was no consistent dose response relation, and the summary risks were significant only in women,... 

Early on, Shennan33 in 1973 and later Armstrong and Doll34 in 1975 found strong positive correlations between international kidney cancer rates and coffee consumption. However, in a matched case-control study... 

Recently, Polychronopoulou45 examined tobacco, ethanol, and coffee as risk factors for ovarian cancer in Greek women in a hospital-based case-control study with data collected from 1989 to 1991. Cases were 189 women who were residents of Greater Athens and less than 75 years old with histologically confirmed common malignant epithelial tumors of the ovary. Controls were female residents of Greater Athens, less than 75... 

In 1990, Vatten et al.51 in Norway subsequently reviewed data on breast cancer risk from a cohort of 14,593 women with 152 cases of breast cancer during a follow up of 12 years on subjects who were between 35 and 51 years old at the beginning of the study and between 46 and 63 years at the end. They reported no overall statistically significant correlation between breast cancer and coffee consumption, but when body mass index was taken into account, lean women who consumed >5 cups per day had a lower risk than women who drank two cups or less. In obese women, however, there was a positive correlation between coffee intake and breast cancer. In a 1993 study, though, Folsom and associates52 failed to find an association between caffeine and postmenopausal breast cancer in 34,388 women in the Iowa Women s Health Study, with a median caffeine intake of 212 mg/day in women who developed breast cancer and 201 mg/day for women who did not and in Denmark, Ewertz53 studied... 

A 1993 review by La Vecchia73 concluded that there were many inconsistencies in the results of the association between coffee and colorectal cancers. For tea, in 1997 Kohlmeier and associates74 after an in-depth review of tea studies concluded that there appeared to be some protective effect of green tea on colon cancer, while they found that the data for black tea was not clear since some studies showed no association and others found increased risk with regular use. 

In an investigation of caffeine-containing products in 1993, Slattery et al.75 reported on alcohol, coffee, tea, caffeine, and theobromine intake and the risk of prostate cancer in a Utah study. Data were gathered from a population-based sample of 362 newly diagnosed cases of prostate cancer and 685 age-matched controls. The Utah population was comprised predominantly of members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints. The researchers found that pack-years of cigarettes smoked and consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea, and caffeine were not associated with prostate cancer risk, but found some possible correlation with increased theobro-... 

Two decades ago in 1979 Heyden et al.78 in an Evans County, Georgia, prospective investigation examined heavy coffee consumption relative to overall cancer mortality. In a comparison of 74 patients who died of cancer with 74 patients matched on sex, age, and race who died of cardiovascular disease, and 74 healthy survivors, also matched on sex, age, and race, they failed to find an association between relatively heavy coffee consumption (>5 cups/day) and cancer. 

In 1981, Lawson et al.,87 for example, compared a group of 210 women hospitalized for fibrocystic disease with 241 women who had breast cancer and were drawn from two ongoing studies in different countries. They matched each case to three female control patients on age, current smoking habits, country, and study. Recent coffee and tea consumption in cases and controls were compared and were shown to have a modest positive association with hot beverage consumption for both fibrocystic disease and breast cancer, but there was no dose-response relationship. The risk of fibrocystic disease associated with heavy consumption of hot beverages (7+ cups per day) vs. none was elevated but not statistically significant. 

Contradictory findings among published reports of relationships between caffeine, coffee, tea, and cancer result in part from the complexity... 

The data presented here has provided a chronological picture of the evolution and current state of the possible positive or negative association of some methylxanthine-containing products and various types of cancer. Perhaps the best conclusion at this time is an extension to tea and other methylxanthine-containing products of the statement by Stavric" who in 1990 wrote that certain controversial issues about the effect of coffee on human health remains unresolved. Future work should focus on types and methods of preparation of teas, roasting and preparation methods for coffees, and consider the whole beverage rather than caffeine or other methylxanthine per se. Meanwhile it appears that both tea and coffee and... 

Stocks, P., Cancer mortality in relation to national consumption of cigarettes, said fuel, tea and coffee, Br J Cancer, 24, 215, 1970. 

Feinstein, A.R., Horwitz, R. I., Spitzer, W. O., Battista, R. N., Coffee and pancreatic cancer The problems of etiologic science and epidemiologic case-control research, JAMA, 246, 957, 1981. 

---