If you love your drinks hot, you may want to stop for your health

There’s really nothing like a hot beverage to warm you up on a chilly day, but could the temperature be having a negative effect on your health?

According to new research by the UN’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), water heated above 65 degrees Celsius induced oesophageal tumours in animal studies, and said drinks swallowed over that temperature were “probably” carcinogenic to humans.

“These results suggest that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of oesophageal cancer and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible,” IARC director Christopher Wild said, reports 9News.

The agency reviewed more than 1000 scientific studies on the possible cancer-causing properties of coffee and found it was not linked to a higher cancer risk – up to a certain temp.

There was some evidence to suggest that drinking beverages at temperatures above 65 degrees Celsius may cause cancer.

“Studies in places such as China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turkey and South America, where tea or mate is traditionally drunk very hot (at about 70C) found that the risk of oesophageal cancer increased with the temperature at which the beverage was drunk,” said the IARC.

Tell us, next time you have a drink, will you wait for it to cool down a bit? What’s your favourite hot drink?