We just found out more about the alleged link between coffee and cancer - and it's good news

My day doesn't start until I get my cup of coffee. So I was pretty pleased with some news out this morning from the World Health Organization that downgraded its warning on a potential link between my favorite morning beverage and - yep, you guessed it - cancer.

Back in the early '90s, coffee was classified as a possible cancer-causing agent, but a new study from the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer helps clear its reputation. Sort of.

There's another aspect of the report that's not so positive: Instead of a link between coffee and cancer, researchers think they may have found a connection between hot beverages and the disease.

The study found evidence that drinking anything very hot - we're talking about beverages sipped at roughly 149 degrees Fahrenheit or higher - is "probably carcinogenic to humans." It found the strongest links between drinking hot beverages and esophageal cancer, or cancer of the food pipe.

While all of this sounds scary, two things about the findings are important to keep in mind:

1. Esophageal cancer is not very common in the first place.

In fact, it makes up just about 1% of all cancers diagnosed in the US. The disease is much more common in Iran, northern China, India, and southern Africa. If you're an American woman, your risk of developing this type of cancer in your lifetime is about 1 in 435. If you're an American man, it's significantly higher - but still fairly low - at about 1 in 125.