London:Good news for caffeine addicts! A new study has observed that drinking four cups of coffee a day helps provide protection against oral cancer. The study has also noted that some of the 1,000 chemicals - including antioxidants - present in coffee can act as protection against many types of cancer.
However, doctors feel that people should exercise moderation as caffeine can increase heart rate and blood pressure.
The research, comprising nine studies conducted in Europe, America and Central America, compared the coffee habits of around 5,000 cancer patients and more than 9,000 healthy people, and took into account their smoking, diet and alcohol habits.
The researchers found that regular coffee drinkers were 39 per cent less likely to develop cancers of the mouth and pharynx than people who drank no coffee.
"We had a very large sample size, and since we combined data across many studies, we had more statistical power to detect associations between cancer and coffee," Mia Hashibe, the study's lead author from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, was quoted as saying by The Daily Mail.
Studies on the links between coffee and cancer have produced confusing and sometimes contradictory results. These results confuse because coffee drinking could be a marker for some other lifestyle factors that increase cancer risk, such as smoking and alcohol.
The study was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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