Coffee Consumption and the Risk of Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease

The possible relationship between coffee and cancer risk was extensively reviewed in 1990 by a Working Group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (1), which concluded that: ”In humans there is limited evidence that coffee drinking is carcinogenic to the urinary bladder, lack of evidence for the breast and large bowel and inadequate evidence for the pancreas, ovary and other sites,” and gave the overall evaluation that: “Coffee is possibly carcinogenic to the human urinary bladder.” Coffee was thus evaluated as a “group B2” substance, which is defined as “the exposure circumstance entails exposure that are possibly carcinogenic to humans.” It also added that: “There is some evidence of an inverse relationship between coffee drinking and cancer of the large bowel.”