Will coffee cause cancer after all? Is Starbucks Coffee Cancer News really groundless?

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Let's go back to 2010, when a little-known non-profit organization filed a lawsuit against 90 coffee retailers, including Starbucks;, on the grounds that the coffee shop violated California law and did not label its coffee products as carcinogens. Eight years later, last Monday, a judge agreed to enforce this law.

The ruling shocked the world. Coffee was rated as a superfood only nearly 10 years ago, and even the cancer agency of the World Health Organization removed coffee from the list of "possible carcinogens" two years ago.

On the day this news was announced, my Facebook and Whatsapp kept ringing! I was sleeping on jet lag, and I read the press release as soon as I received these messages. After reading it, I laughed until even jet lag got over it and woke up immediately. There are so many carcinogens in the world that burn coffee this time!

If you are still worried about coffee causing cancer, you can rest assured.

Acrylamide is everywhere.

The current public anxiety and excitement does not come from coffee itself, but from a chemical: acrylamide acrylamide. Acrylic amine is produced when coffee beans are roasted. The International Center for Cancer Research, a branch of the World Health Organization, classifies acrylamide as a possible or easy carcinogen.

The problem is that acrylic amine is everywhere. Acrylamide is found in everything from ── smoking to the daily diet of French fries, potato chips, biscuits, cookies, cereals and other starchy foods. The FDA of the United States Food and Drug Administration has tested the acrylamide content of French fries in a fast food chain. The results range from 117 to 313 ppb units, and some even exceed 1000 ppb. Even baby foods, such as tooth cakes, contain acrylamide. Six coffee brands were tested with results ranging from 175 to 351 ppb, with decaffeinated ones having the highest acrylamide content.

My point is that acrylamide is everywhere.

The problems in California

What makes the California government special is that since 1986, companies have been required to label warning words on food packaging for all substances that cause cancer or have negative health effects. On its list, there are more than 900 chemicals that need to be labeled. However, whether these substances really cause cancer is open to question.

Carcinogens are not caused by food.

So far, it has only been confirmed that large amounts of acrylamide can cause cancer in mice, but there has never been any human test data. Even if acrylamide is really carcinogenic, it is still unknown how much it takes to get into trouble. Most importantly, the presence of acrylamide does not mean that coffee causes cancer.

The situation equals that blueberry fruit is high in sugar, but that doesn't mean blueberries cause high blood sugar. The reason is that blueberries contain other nutrients and antioxidants to fight against soaring blood sugar.

The same is true of whole wheat. It contains inositol hexaphosphate acid, which will hinder the absorption of iron when absorbed alone. In addition, whole grains also contain lectins, and undercooked grains are thought to cause inflammation of the intestines. However, whole grains contain other nutrients and dietary fiber, which are not only beneficial to the intestines and do not cause inflammation, but also reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer by up to 17%.

Back in this case, acrylamide caused cancer in mice, but the dose was 1, 000 to 100000 times more than our dietary intake. In addition, the way in which mice absorb acrylamide is different from that in humans, and carcinogenesis in mice may not have the same effect on us.

Coffee contains other nutrients that are good for the body, including polyphenols. Polyphenols assist with antioxidants and help reduce the risk of cancer. Just last November, the British journal British Medical Journal published a new study that brings together more than 200 reports on coffee and health. The results show that drinking more coffee can reduce the risk of prostate cancer, endometrial cancer, blood cancer, skin cancer and so on. In other words, even if coffee contains acrylamide, coffee also has other antioxidants and nutrients that can offset the effects of acrylamide.