Drinking mate, an infusion of the herb ilex paraguariensis, is very common in several South American countries, and has been associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer. This increased risk may be attributed to drinking mate very hot, or to mate's potentially carcinogenic contaminants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Mate leaves are often dried via smoking, and therefore commercial samples may have high amounts of PAHs. We found 10 original articles that had measured PAHs in commercial dry samples, and nearly all found very high mass fractions. Most studies found benzo[a]pyrene mass fractions to be over 25 ng/g, and some found levels up to 600 ng/g. However, carcinogenic PAHs are often hydrophobic, and may not readily transfer into infusions. Seven articles studied transfer rates, and these rates varied from 1 to 50%, depending on the methods employed. Further careful studies of transfer rates in situations that mimic real life drinking of mate are recommended. Also, further studies of biological indicators of PAH exposure, particularly in randomized experiments, and analyzing DNA from tumor samples of mate drinkers are recommended.

中文翻译：

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多环芳烃是伴侣致癌性的潜在来源。

饮酒伴侣，一种巴拉圭冬青草药的输液，在南美的几个国家中非常普遍，并且与食道癌的风险增加有关。这种增加的风险可能归因于非常热饮的配偶，或配偶的潜在致癌污染物，例如多环芳烃（PAH）。伴侣叶通常通过吸烟干燥，因此商业样品中可能含有大量的PAH。我们发现有10篇原始文章测量了商业干燥样品中的PAHs，几乎所有文章都发现了非常高的质量分数。大多数研究发现苯并[a] py的质量分数超过25 ng / g，有的发现含量高达600 ng / g。但是，致癌的PAHs通常是疏水性的，可能不容易转移到输注液中。七篇文章研究了传输速率，根据使用的方法，这些比率从1％到50％不等。建议在模仿伴侣的现实生活中，进一步研究转移速率。此外，还建议进一步研究PAH暴露的生物学指标，尤其是在随机实验中，并分析伴侣饮酒者肿瘤样本中的DNA。