Male tea drinkers 'could increase the risk of prostate cancer'

Risk: Men who drink more than seven cups per day could increase the risk of prostate cancer.SWNS

Men who drink large amounts of tea could increase the risk of prostate cancer, research has shown.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow found that more than seven cups a day raised the chances of men developing the disease by 50%.

The team monitored the health of more than 6000 men aged between 21 and 75, over a period of 37 years.

Participants provided information about their tea, coffee and alcohol consumption, smoking habits and general health.

Just under a quarter of the men were heavy tea drinkers. Of these, 6.4% developed prostate cancer during the course of the study.

However the team say it is unknown whether the link is causal or due to coincidence is still unknown.

Study leader Dr Kashif Shafique, from the university’s Institute of Health and Wellbeing said: "Most previous research has shown either no relationship with prostate cancer for black tea or some preventive effect of green tea.

"We don't know whether tea itself is a risk factor or if tea drinkers are generally healthier and live to an older age when prostate cancer is more common anyway.”

He added: "We found that heavy tea drinkers were more likely not to be overweight, be non-alcohol drinkers and have healthy cholesterol levels.

"However, we did adjust for these differences in our analysis and still found that men who drank the most tea were at greater risk of prostate cancer."

Each year almost 41,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer and around 11,000 die from the disease.

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