Drinking coffee does not change a person's risk of being diagnosed with or dying from cancer, Medical Xpress reports citing a new QIMR Berghofer study.

The research findings have been published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Senior author and head of QIMR Berghofer's Statistical Genetics Group, Associate Professor Stuart MacGregor, said the large Mendelian randomization study looked at data from more than 300,000 people and showed drinking coffee every day neither reduced nor increased a person's risk of developing any cancer.

"We know that coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world, and there continue to be mixed messages about the role it plays in disease," Associate Professor MacGregor said.

"We also know that a preference for coffee is heritable.

"Our two-pronged research looked at whether cancer rates differed among people with different levels of self-reported coffee consumption, and whether the same trend was seen when we replaced self-reported consumption with genetic predisposition towards coffee consumption.

"We found there was no real relationship between how many cups of coffee a person had a day and if they developed any particular cancers.

"The study also ruled out a link between coffee intake and dying from the disease."

Coffee contains a complex mixture of bioactive ingredients, including substances such as caffeine and kahweol, which have been shown to display anti-tumor effects in animal studies.

Its potential anti-cancer effect on humans has not been established however, with studies to date producing conflicting findings for overall cancer risk and for individual cancers such as breast and prostate cancers.