Does drinking cold water cause cancer?

A disturbing e-mail contains a dire warning about the danger of drinking cold water: it makes your intestine clog up and causes cancer. The message advises to drink warm water or soup after a meal. How real is this danger?

I received this e-mail from a friend. I wanted to dismiss it at first, because it sounded familiar and not particularly harmful, but I changed my mind when another friend warned me on Saturday for the same thing. Below, you can find the exact text as I received it. I will discuss every element of it afterwards. This is the text:

Heart attacks and drinking warm water....

This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about ladies and their heart attacks. This makes sense.. the Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals...not cold water... maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating! Nothing to lose, everything to gain...

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this "sludge" reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

A serious note about heart attacks: Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line. You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive...

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read this...It could save your life!!

**Please be a true friend and send this article to all your friends you care about**

Let’s now analyse this message.

This is a very good article.

No, it is not a very good article, not even a neutral one. It is a bad article.

This makes sense.. the Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals...not cold water... maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!!!

It does not make sense. Yes, indeed, the Chinese and Japanese traditionally drink tea with their meals. Hot tea? That remains to be seen. Some of them do. Many do not. In the summer, the Japanese drink cold barley tea by the gallon. Yes, also with meals. They love to drink beer with their meals. Very cold beer. Or cold green tea. And yes, also cold water. Do not forget that the Chinese and Japanese don’t have leather tongues either. Even their so-called hot tea will have cooled quite a bit before they drink it. In short, they are not all that different from us. So, if we adopt their drinking habit while eating, we can pretty much continue to do what we have always done.

Nothing to lose, everything to gain...

There are some as yet unsubstantiated indications that tea might be beneficial for our health, such as the antioxidants it contains. Some information about green tea can be found in this Digital Journal article. Might is the keyword here. The biggest advantage in switching to tea, hot and cold, is probably that tea contains no measurable calories if no sugar and/or cream is added, in stark contrast with beer, wine, other alcoholic drinks, juice, non-diet soft drinks and others. So, yes indeed, switching to tea could be advantageous.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable

to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However,

the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed.

When you melt butter in a pan, and you pour cold water in it (a potentially dangerous exercise, beware of splashing), you will indeed see that part of the butter resolidifies. This is what happens in your stomach, except that the temperature in that stomach is about 37C and that the cold drink will already have passed through your mouth and oesophagus before arriving in your stomach. Chances are that this melted butter will therefore not resolidify at all, and if does, it will be solid for no more than a few seconds at the most. The same is true for all oils, except that these are even more liquid and that the chance for them to temporarily resolidify, even for just a few seconds, is very small indeed.

It will slow down the digestion.

It won’t.

Once this "sludge" reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food.

This seems to be a contradiction. Either digestion is slowed, or it isn’t. Second, solid food is broken down in the stomach. Once food leaves the stomach and enters the intestine, the stomach contents are of roughly uniform texture, with the exception of foods that are not digestible in the stomach, such as certain plant materials.

It will line the intestine.

It won’t. Our intestine is not a pipeline. It is a living structure that continuously renews itself. Because of that, even if something would line the intestine, it would fall off within days.

Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer.

No, it won’t turn into fats. Oils are fats. They will simply remain fats. While a few studies have indeed found some type of a connection between (trans)fats or the over-consumption of fats and certain cancers, these studies are far from uncontroversial and it has nothing to do with the combination of oily foods with cold water.

It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

It isn’t, but it is not harmful either, i.e. it has no known health effects, positive and negative.

A serious note about heart attacks: Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of

intense pain in the jaw line. You may never have the first chest pain

during the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are

also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they

are asleep do not wake up. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound

sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better

chance we could survive...

This bit is essentially correct. The combination with the scaremongering about cold drinks is disturbing, however. This suggests that there is a link between cold drinks and heart attacks, but there isn’t one.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read this...It could save your life!!

**Please be a true friend and send this article to all your friends you care about**

Please be a true friend, and do not send this to anyone. When a message contains this type of request, it is a good indication that it is probably a hoax. On top of that, genuine medical advice will not be sent in an uncredited, badly written e-mail. As a conclusion, present medical knowledge indicates that drinking cold water during or after a meal is no more dangerous for our health than drinking hot water. This mail is a hoax. The information in it should not be taken seriously. It should be deleted, and certainly not be sent to anyone.