Earlier this year, researchers at the Lund University in Sweden discovered that drinking coffee might help to prevent breast cancer returning in patients who had previously been diagnosed with cancer.
In a nutshell, scientists discovered that when patients consumed two or more cups of coffee a day with the drug Tamoxifen, they had a significantly lower chance of the cancer coming back.
The research
Researchers studied over 600 patients with breast cancer in southern Sweden for a period of five years. Half the patients were treated with Tamoxifen – a drug given to patients after breast cancer surgery to help stop the recurrence of the cancer.
Why coffee?
Although it is still unclear what role coffee might play to help lower the chance of the cancer reoccurring, researchers believe that coffee beans might help to activate the Tamoxifen making it more efficient in the patient who is taking it. However, at this stage, scientists are still unclear.
Coffee and other cancers
In the past, researchers have found that drinking coffee might help to prevent certain types of cancers from developing.
However, researchers discovered that it wasn’t because of the caffeine. For example, a study researching the effects coffee had on breast cancer, published in the National Cancer Institute, found that it didn’t matter if patients consumed caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.
Researchers believe that coffee has anti-inflammatory properties and is rich in antioxidants which could be partly why studies have found that drinking coffee regularly could lower your chances of developing certain types of cancer.
Future research
In the future, researchers at Lund University have said they would like to find out more about the effects lifestyle has on breast cancer treatment.
It would certainly be interesting to find out the effects of environment and stress, whether something as simple as consuming hot drinks regularly has a relaxing effect on the body, and what specifically makes coffee good for combating cancer.