Coffee not linked to cancer, says WHO

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: The World Health Organisation has ridiculed the possible link between coffee and cancer saying that the existing proof is not enough to claim that coffee is a possible carcinogen.

Experts at the the International agency for Research on Cancer have said that there is inadequate evidence to suggest that coffee causes cancer and it can't be ascertained on possible assumptions.

"I'm not really sure why coffee was in a higher category in the first place," said Owen Yang, an epidemiologist at Oxford University who has previously studied the possible link between coffee and cancer. He was not part of the IARC expert group. "The best evidence available suggests that coffee does not raise the cancer risk," he said.

Health experts say that they began to look out for a possible link between the two after witnessing high rates of esophageal cancer in many countries.

However, latest report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, suggested that drinking "very hot" beverages of any kind could potentially raise the cancer risk.