People with colon cancer who drink two to four cups of coffee a day are much less likely to have their disease return, research shows.
People with the disease who consume this amount are also much less likely to die from any cause, the research found, suggesting coffee helps people diagnosed with Britain’s second biggest cancer killer.
Experts said the findings were ‘promising’ and speculated that, if other studies show the same effect, the 43,000 Britons diagnosed with bowel cancer each year could be encouraged to drink coffee. The disease claims about 16,500 lives per year – 45 per day.
A study of 1,719 colon cancer patients in the Netherlands by Dutch and British researchers found that those who drank at least two cups of coffee had a lower risk of the disease returning. The effect was dose-dependent: those who drank the most saw their risk drop the most.
Patients who drank at least five cups a day were 32% less likely than those who drank less than two cups to have their colon cancer return, according to the paper, which was funded by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and is published in the International Journal of Cancer.
Similarly, higher levels of coffee consumption also appeared to be closely linked to a person’s chances of survival.
Again, those who drank at least two cups a day had a lower risk of death compared to those who did not. And as with the risk of recurrence, those who drank at least five cups saw their risk of death drop the most: by 29%.
People in Great Britain drink an estimated 95 million cups of coffee per day.
The leader of the research team, Dr Ellen Kampman, professor of nutrition and disease at Wageningen University, said the disease recurs in one in five people diagnosed and can be fatal.
“Intriguingly, this study suggests that drinking three to four cups of coffee may reduce the recurrence of colon cancer.”
However, she emphasized that the team had found a strong link between regular coffee consumption and the disease, rather than a causal link between them.
“However, we are hopeful that the finding is real, as it appears to be dose dependent: the more coffee consumed, the greater the effect,” she added.
The research is the latest to show coffee reduces the risk of cancer. There is already strong evidence that it reduces the risk of liver and uterine cancer, and there is evidence that it does the same for cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and skin. It has also been linked to a lower risk of developing colon cancer.
Prof. Marc Gunter, co-author of the study and chair of cancer epidemiology and prevention at the school of public health at Imperial College London, said the findings were “very provocative because we don’t really understand why coffee would have such an effect. in colon cancer patients”.
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He added: “But they are also promising because they may point to a way to improve the prognosis and survival of colon cancer patients.
“Coffee contains hundreds of biologically active compounds that have antioxidant properties and may be protective against colon cancer.
“Coffee also reduces inflammation and insulin levels – which have been linked to the development and progression of colon cancer – and may have potentially beneficial effects on the gut microbiome.
“However, we need more research to delve deeper into the biology of why coffee might have such an effect on colon cancer prognosis and survival.”
The WCRF has identified chlorogenic acid, also found in kale, as an agent that could provide an important part of the explanation due to its role in controlling the body’s glucose levels and regulating insulin levels.
The emergence of coffee as a potential protector against cancer is notable because the World Health Organization classified it as “possibly carcinogenic” until 2016. before he changes his mind because the evidence for it did not exist.