CASE STUDYDangerous Habit?IWill your coffee habit give you cancer? A court in California considered whetherCalifornians' morning cup of coffee should include a health warning. In 1986,Californians voted for the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic EnforcementAct, which requires that products that contain harmful chemicals belabeled as hazardous. Coffee contains a chemical, acrylamide, that, inthe official jargon "is known to the State of California to cause can-cer." In 2010, a lawyer sued the coffee industry to force companies toeither label their product as hazardous or to remove the chemicalfrom their product. As of the date of publication of this book,the lawsuit continues. Complicating this lawyer's efforts is thefact that recent research suggests that drinking coffee is pos-sibly beneficial to our health and maybe even reduces the riskof cancer.Does coffee cause cancer? Does it prevent cancer? Why are there conflicting opin-ions? In this chapter we explore questions such as these, and consider the different typesof evidence needed to make causal claims, such as the claim that drinking coffee willgive you cancer. CASE STUDYREVISITEDDangerous Habit?Does drinking coffee cause cancer? This question turns out to be difficult to answer.It is true that coffee contains acrylamide, but it is difficult to know if it contains it inlarge enough quantities to cause harm in humans. Acrylamide is produced by someplant-based foods when they are heated up or cooked. (Not just coffee, but also frenchfries and potato chips.) Controlled studies carried out on rats and mice did show thatingesting acrylamide through water increased their cancer risk. But controlled stud-ies are not possible or ethical with humans, and according to the American CancerSociety, attempts to find significant differences in cancer rates between those who eatacrylamide-rich diets and those who do not have either failed to find an increased risk orhave found mixed results. In 2016, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, anagency run by the World Health Organization (WHO), downgraded the risks of coffeefrom "probably carcinogenic for humans" to "not classifiable as to its carcinogeneticityto humans." In slightly plainer language, this means that the current evidence does notallow one to conclude that coffee causes cancer in humans.This does not mean that scientists have proved that drinking coffee is safe. As timegoes on, we will no doubt learn more about the risks, or lack of risks, of drinking coffeeas potential confounding variables are ruled out.Sources:https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/acrylamide.htmlhttps://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/2016/DebunkMyth.php

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CASE STUDYDangerous Habit?IWill your coffee habit give you cancer? A court in California considered whetherCalifornians' morning cup of coffee should include a health warning. In 1986,Californians voted for the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic EnforcementAct, which requires that products that contain harmful chemicals belabeled as hazardous. Coffee contains a chemical, acrylamide, that, inthe official jargon &#34;is known to the State of California to cause can-cer.&#34; In 2010, a lawyer sued the coffee industry to force companies toeither label their product as hazardous or to remove the chemicalfrom their product. As of the date of publication of this book,the lawsuit continues. Complicating this lawyer's efforts is thefact that recent research suggests that drinking coffee is pos-sibly beneficial to our health and maybe even reduces the riskof cancer.Does coffee cause cancer? Does it prevent cancer? Why are there conflicting opin-ions? In this chapter we explore questions such as these, and consider the different typesof evidence needed to make causal claims, such as the claim that drinking coffee willgive you cancer. CASE STUDYREVISITEDDangerous Habit?Does drinking coffee cause cancer? This question turns out to be difficult to answer.It is true that coffee contains acrylamide, but it is difficult to know if it contains it inlarge enough quantities to cause harm in humans. Acrylamide is produced by someplant-based foods when they are heated up or cooked. (Not just coffee, but also frenchfries and potato chips.) Controlled studies carried out on rats and mice did show thatingesting acrylamide through water increased their cancer risk. But controlled stud-ies are not possible or ethical with humans, and according to the American CancerSociety, attempts to find significant differences in cancer rates between those who eatacrylamide-rich diets and those who do not have either failed to find an increased risk orhave found mixed results. In 2016, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, anagency run by the World Health Organization (WHO), downgraded the risks of coffeefrom &#34;probably carcinogenic for humans&#34; to &#34;not classifiable as to its carcinogeneticityto humans.&#34; In slightly plainer language, this means that the current evidence does notallow one to conclude that coffee causes cancer in humans.This does not mean that scientists have proved that drinking coffee is safe. As timegoes on, we will no doubt learn more about the risks, or lack of risks, of drinking coffeeas potential confounding variables are ruled out.Sources:https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/acrylamide.htmlhttps://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/2016/DebunkMyth.php

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or can Does coffee cause cancer? Does it prevent cancer? Why are there conflicting opin- ions? In this chapter we explore questions such as these, and consider the different types of evidence needed to make causal claims, such as the claim that drinking coffee will give you cancer.