Drinking hot tea 'raises the risk of throat cancer'

Good morning friends. I love to drink tea. My day is not complete when I don’t have a cup of tea. I prefer to drink warm tea, because with that I taste the aroma of it. But with some, they want to drink the tea hot. It’s also good to drink hot tea but with reference to Indian Express there is a disadvantage of it. Let me share that to all of you

Relish your tea, researchers claimed that sipping scalding tea could raise the risk of developing throat cancer.

The British Medical Journal, has revealed that drinking steaming hot tea is actually linked with an eightfold increased risk of cancer of the food tube or the oesophagus.

The lead researcher Reza Malekzadeh of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, "Informing the population about the hazards of drinking hot tea may be helpful in reducing the incidence of oesophageal cancer..." In fact, the researchers came to the conclusion after analyzing tea drinking habits of 300 people with throat cancer and 571 people without the disease.

Compared with drinking tea at 65 degrees or less, drinking tea between 65 degrees and 69 degrees was associated with a doubling in the risk of cancer and drinking even hotter tea was linked to an eight fold risk, the study found. People who drank their tea less than two minutes after it was poured had a five times higher risk of the cancer than those who drank it four or more minutes after pouring.

In order to minimize the risk that tea drinkers misjudged how hot their drink was, the researchers tested the temperatures of tea drunk by almost 50,000 people in the area, the British media reported.

David Whiteman of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research wrote: "These findings are not cause for alarm, however, and they should not reduce public enthusiasm for the time honoured ritual of drinking tea.

"Rather, we should follow the advice of Mrs Beeton, who prescribes a five to 10 minute interval between making and pouring tea, by which time the tea will be sufficiently flavoursome and unlikely to cause thermal injury." However, the study found no association between the amount of tea consumed and the risk of cancer.

Rating Alternative Medicine – 3

Aromatherapy

Scent is an important part of our lives. Everyone has a favorite aroma-a perfume or an aftershave lotion, a certain flower, the oil used in a relaxing massage.

Professional aroma therapists claim that, in addition tot cosmetic pluses-making you smell good and feel attractive-scents can improve your mood and promote good health. Essential oils-aromatic substances extracted from flowers, roots, bark, leaves, wood resins, and lemon or orange rinds-can be sprayed into the air and inhaled, or absorbed through the skin via massage, hot baths, or hot or cold compresses. It’s believed that every oil either soothes and relaxes or stimulates and invigorates.

How we respond to a particular aroma-with feelings of lust, anxiety, sadness-influences our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and possibly our immune system as well. But there is little evidence that scent plays an important role in the management of serious disease. There are some scientifically valid studies that show it can help with less profound problems, including a recent one documenting that elderly substantial doses of sleeping pills slept like babies when a lavender aroma was wafted into their bedrooms at night. Another experiment looked at patients undergoing magnetic resonance imaging, who often complained of claustrophobia in the magnetic capsule. After exposure to the aroma of vanilla, 63 percent of patients reported that they felt less claustrophobic. Interestingly, there were no corresponding changes in their heart rates. So the patients’ anxieties were lessened either by pleasant associations they made with vanilla-a purely psychological phenomenon-or by some undiscovered physiological response.

THE BOTTOM LINE: I don’t believe aromatherapy is a major player in the fight against disease, but certain essential oils can relieve stress and help manage some skin disorders. If you’re considering aromatherapy or are already using it, beware that aromatic oils vary in quality, and their production is not regulated: so make sure your source is reliable. Your best bet is to find a product or brand that works well for you and stick with it. If your skin is sensitive, always test for allergies by applying a very small amount of the diluted oil before you try the whole treatment.