Coffee and Cancer

There are no intervention trials of effects of coffee consumption on risk of cancer at any site and consequently there is no cause effect evidence. By contrast, there are numerous case control and cohort studies of associations between coffee consumption and risk of cancer at various sites particularly the bladder, breast, colon, ovary, pancreas and kidney. Such studies of associations cannot prove cause effect relationships and are subject to confounding by other risk factors and to bias. In addition, coffee consumption might be a marker for some other aspect of lifestyle such as smoking which is a true cause of cancer.

Associations between coffee consumption and cancer risk have been reviewed at regular intervals. In 1997 the World Cancer Research Fund in association with the American Institute for Cancer Research concluded that “Most evidence on coffee suggests that coffee drinking has no relationship with cancer risk” (1). The authors of a 2000 scientific review wrote that “This updated and comprehensive overview of coffee and cancer epidemiology provides further reassuring information on the absence of any appreciable association between coffee intake and most common cancers, including cancer of the genital tract, digestive tract and of the breast” (4).

Accordingly there is no scientific reason for believing that moderate consumption of coffee

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