Recent reports have come out regarding the protective effect of coffee against liver cancer. Specifically, Drs. Larsson and Wolk of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm concluded that for every 2 cups of coffee consumed per day, there was a 43 percent reduction in an individual's risk of liver cancer. They analysed 11studies involving 2,260 liver cancer patients and 239,146 individuals without liver cancer.However, Dr. Ang Peng Tiam, President of the Singapore Society of Oncology, believes that this and other studies like this one are too "simplistic".
Dr Ang questions, "Why in the liver? Why not in the pancreas or in the stomach? It is for these reasons that sometimes further research needs to be done."
Ang continues, "It will take more than this article to convince me to become a teetotaller or coffee drinker! In a prospective trial, you actually intervene, and you watch for a result. In contrast, in this meta analysis, it is a retrospective study. You are finding people who already have developed cancer, you select a control group who at the present time does not have cancer and then you ask them... from what they can remember, what is their diet like."
Dr. Ang feels the best prevention against cancer is to exercise regularly and eat and drink in moderation.
