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LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization's research arm has downgraded its classification of coffee as a possible carcinogen, declaring there isn't enough proof to show a link to cancer.

But the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, also announced in a report published on Wednesday that drinking "very hot" beverages of any kind could potentially raise the cancer risk, and it classified them as "probably carcinogenic" to humans.

Experts convened by the Lyon-based IARC concluded that there was inadequate evidence to suggest coffee might cause cancer, according to a letter published in the Lancet Oncology.

"I'm not really sure why coffee was in a higher category in the first place," said Owen Yang, an epidemiologist at Oxford University who has previously studied the possible link between coffee and cancer. He was not part of the IARC expert group. "The best evidence available suggests that coffee does not raise the cancer risk," he said.