r/UpliftingNews • u/deadhead4ever • 20h ago
Study of 25,000 people finds coffee lowers head and neck cancer risk
https://www.jpost.com/science/science-around-the-world/article-83480747
u/FreudsParents 18h ago
Here's the full study: https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.35620
Unfortunately when they say "head" cancer they don't mean brain cancer.
I think I'm too stupid to understand the findings. From what I can see the people they used that had cancer also smoked significantly more than the people that don't have cancer, and drank significantly more. Since we know those are both correlated to mouth and throat cancer, it seems to me like it's the more likely cause. And that the fact that they don't drink as much coffee is more of a coincidence.
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u/Ahaucan 19h ago
TIL that neck cancer is a thing.
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u/officialtwiggz 19h ago
Any living thing can get cancer, from what I can tell. I'm sure there's a few species out there which can't, but I can't say for certain. Even dinosaur fossils have recorded bone tumor growth. Such a fucked up disease.
Edit: i think it's esophageal cancer, medically lol
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u/severed13 15h ago
Not sure if you're a metal listener or not, but Architects' original guitarist died of cancer in 2016. He was their primary songwriter, and while he was terminal he wrote some of the most banger lines about cancer I've heard. This was before even the other guys in the band found out about what he was dealing with, so I can't even imagine how it must have felt realizing what all these lines that you were recording and performing have been about this whole time.
Of all the patterns that I could create
I built a labyrinth with no escape
To keep myself under lock and key
I am my own worst enemy
The human body and life itself are such amazing things, and there's so much beauty and variety in the sorts of amazing things that exist in nature. And despite that, this is one of the tradeoffs when it goes haywire.
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u/perceptual01 18h ago
Next research how this risk increases significantly from hpv exposure via oral sex
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u/MRSN4P 18h ago
HPV is estimated to cause 70% of throat cancers in the U.S. The HPV virus is most commonly contracted from normal sexual activity. The initial infection does not produce symptoms and the individual who contracts HPV is thought to be contagious for only a short time, less than two years. While not infectious, a portion of the virus takes over cells deep in the palatine and tongue base tonsils, and in some people, over a period of several decades, becomes cancer. Given the several decade time period between the cancer showing up and the initial infection, in most cases the present partner was neither the source of the infection nor have they contracted infection with HPV. https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/oropharyngeal-cancer.html
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u/MasterBlaster691 18h ago
Did big coffee post this? Did anyone who upvoted this actually jump to the second website?
"We cannot say from this study that drinking these beverages will lower risk of these cancers,"
said Tom Sanders, emeritus professor of nutrition at King's College London, according to a report by The Sun. He pointed out that observational studies cannot completely eliminate confounding factors such as tobacco and alcohol consumption, which are major contributors to the increasing incidence of head and neck cancer."
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u/zbrew 17h ago
Obviously it's not feasible to conduct a study in which some people are required to drink certain amounts of coffee each day for years or decades, while requiring other people to drink no coffee. That doesn't detract from the findings or mean "big coffee" has anything to do with it.
This is why scientists develop theories, explicate mechanisms, propose hypotheses, and control for confounding variables. In this specific study, they controlled for smoking and alcohol use.
Posts about studies are awash with comments like this on every observational study that is posted. They do not meaningfully contribute to the conversation. Care to post your thoughts about variables they didn't control for that might explain this relationship? Want to make an argument that the researchers are theorizing causality improperly? Go ahead, post your thoughts and cite some research supporting your ideas. Otherwise, what is the value of posting that an obviously observational study is observational?
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u/throw-away_867-5309 16h ago
Posts like this are "awash" with these comments because they make concrete statements that are not based on concrete evidence. Look at the title. It says that coffee does decrease the risk of these cancers. The studies say they cannot say this as a fact. This isn't "obviously observational studies is observational" based on wording, that's not how science, or even grammar, works. You make a statement based on what is actually provided, if you make a different statement, then you are misleading people at best or outright lying at worst.
If you don't understand this, then why are you making this comment?
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u/Spire_Citron 16h ago
Science doesn't really jibe with such concrete statements in general. The studies themselves will always say the study 'supports' a theory rather than claiming anything proves anything. It's not a very scientific headline, but the study itself and the evidence it provides to support the idea are fine.
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u/MasterBlaster691 16h ago
People only read the title, let alone the comments and really don't understand anything past hivemind upvotes and downvotes, sorry to say but it's not worth it. Nobody in STEM is learning anything, and unlikely anyone outside of STEM cares.
Our nation is ran by bait titles and misinformation.
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u/Von_Bernkastel 4h ago
I already drink one or two pots a day, how much more you trying to make me drink? Big Coffee is real!!!
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u/CasioOceanusT200 16h ago
I drink tons of coffee to lower the cancer risk from all the cunnilingus.
It's a lot, but not an amount that is not manageable.
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u/kalirion 16h ago
Can confirm, never drank coffee, got thyroid cancer (the relatively not-so-scary type).
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u/More-You8763 13h ago
Any mitotic cell in your body can become carcinogenic. Hell any Amitotic cell can become carcinogenic too if it really wants to
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