Published 29 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1738
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1738

Letters

Tea and cancer

Role of temperature

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

Islami and colleagues’ finding of an association between hot tea and oesophageal cancer has implications outside Iran.1

For years in Kashmir we have been looking at the high incidence of oesophageal cancer, probably the commonest cancer (there is not yet a population based registry in Kashmir). A major constituent of the traditional Kashmiri diet is salt tea, brewed for hours in copper utensils. It is served in samovars, where the tea is kept boiling by feeding the central chute with burning charcoal, and poured into large cups, steaming; an adult consumes an average 2-4 cups daily. The tea is consumed as hot as possible.

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1738

Shad S Akhtar, consultant medical oncologist1

1 Srinagar, Indian Kashmir 190008

shadsalim@hotmail.com

Competing interests: None declared.

  1. Islami F, Pourshams A, Nasrollahzadeh D, Kamangar F, Fahimi S, Shakeri R, et al. Tea drinking habits and oesophageal cancer in a high risk area in northern Iran: population based case-control study. BMJ 2009;338:b929. (26 March.)[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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Relevant Article

Tea drinking habits and oesophageal cancer in a high risk area in northern Iran: population based case-control study
Farhad Islami, Akram Pourshams, Dariush Nasrollahzadeh, Farin Kamangar, Saman Fahimi, Ramin Shakeri, Behnoush Abedi-Ardekani, Shahin Merat, Homayoon Vahedi, Shahryar Semnani, Christian C Abnet, Paul Brennan, Henrik Møller, Farrokh Saidi, Sanford M Dawsey, Reza Malekzadeh, and Paolo Boffetta
BMJ 2009 338: b929. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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