The World Health Organization used to classify coffee as a "possible carcinogen," but in June 2016 it reversed course, stating that there is not enough proof to establish any link to cancer.
"I'm not really sure why coffee was in a higher category in the first place," Owen Yang, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, told the Associated Press. "The best evidence available suggests that coffee does not raise the cancer risk."
The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, advises that drinking "very hot" beverages of any kind could potentially raise the risk of esophageal cancer, although the evidence is limited.
