Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco found that drinking coffee is linked to prostate cancer development in current smokers.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States.
Prostate cancer usually grows very slowly and finding and treating it before symptoms occur may not improve men’s health or help them live longer.
Drinking tea has been linked to lower risks of cancer and heart disease, improved weight loss, and a stronger immune system.
On the other hand, studies have found coffee as a potential way to head off not just Parkinson’s but type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and heart problems.
How drinking coffee and tea affect prostate cancer development is unclear.
In the current study, researchers examined 1,557 men from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor who completed a food frequency questionnaire about 28 months after a prostate cancer diagnosis.
The team checked associations between coffee (total, caffeinated, decaffeinated) and tea (total, non-herbal, herbal) drinking and the risk of prostate cancer progression (recurrence, secondary treatment, bone metastases, or prostate cancer death).
They also examined whether smoking (current, former, never) changed these associations.
After a follow-up of 9 years, the team found that 167 patients showed prostate cancer progression.
They found drinking more coffee was linked to a higher risk of prostate cancer progression in current smokers.
There was no link between coffee drinking and prostate cancer development among never and former smokers.
However, the team found drinking decaffeinated coffee was linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer progression in these men.
There was no association between drinking tea and prostate cancer progression.
Based on these findings, the team concluded that among non-smoking men diagnosed with prostate cancer, moderate coffee and tea drinking was not linked to the risk of cancer progression.
However, drinking coffee was linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer development in current smokers.
The research was published in Cancer Causes & Control and conducted by Crystal S Langlais et al.
If you care about cancer, please read studies about a vitamin that is critical to cancer prevention, and why vitamin K is so important for older people.
If you care about nutrition, please read studies that vitamin C may help treat heart rhythm problems, and green tea could protect your body as a vaccine.
