More than 4 cups of coffee a day may lower risk of bowel cancer recurrence, according to new research funded by World Cancer Research Fund and published in the International Journal of Cancer. They also have a lower risk of death following their diagnosis.
The study found that participants who drank more than 4 cups of coffee had a 32% lower risk of cancer recurrence than participants who drank less than 2 cups per day in terms of relative risk. In addition, the risk of dying was lower among coffee drinkers, and 3–5 cups of coffee per day seem sufficient to improve survival.
The research team was led by Professor Ellen Kampman, Professor of Nutrition and Disease at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. Kampman stated: “We are now doing further research to confirm the effect we are seeing is causative rather than simply an association. We are hopeful, however, that the finding is real because it appears to be dose dependent – the more coffee drunk, the greater the effect. This has been previously supported by other, though smaller, studies.”