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Coffee more likely to benefit than harm health
Coffee consumption was associated with lower risk for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and several cancers, according to findings published in BMJ.
“Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide,” Robin Poole, MB, from the academic unit of primary care and population sciences at the University of Southampton, England, and colleagues wrote. “As such, even small individual health effects could be important on a population scale. There have been mixed conclusions as to whether coffee consumption is beneficial or harmful to health, and this varies between outcomes.”
To investigate the relationship between coffee consumption and several health outcomes, Poole and colleagues conducted an umbrella review of available existing evidence, including 201 meta-analyses of observational studies assessing 67 unique health outcomes and 17 meta-analyses of interventional studies assessing nine unique health outcomes.
Results showed that for diverse health outcomes, beneficial associations with coffee consumption were more likely than harmful associations. These associations remained across a variety of exposures, including high vs. low, any vs. none and one extra cup per day.
Consuming coffee was nonlinearly associated with risk reductions in all-cause mortality (RR = 0.83; 95% CI, 0.83-0.88), cardiovascular mortality (RR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.72-0.9) and CVD (RR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.8-0.9). Consumption of three to four cups of coffee per day yielded the largest relative risk reduction.
Coffee consumption also reduced the risk of multiple specific cancers, including prostate, endometrial, melanoma, nonmelanoma skin and liver cancers, as well as neurological, metabolic and liver conditions.
Adjustments for smoking largely eliminated harms associated with coffee consumption, but not for pregnant women. High consumption of coffee in pregnancy increased the odds of low birth weight (OR = 1.31; 95% CI, 1.03-1.67), preterm birth in both the first (OR = 1.22; 95% CI, 1-1.49) and second trimester (OR = 1.12; 95% CI, 1.02-1.22) and pregnancy loss (OR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.06-1.99), compared with low or no consumption. In addition, consuming coffee increased the risk of fracture in women, but not men.
“We cannot recommend patients begin drinking coffee or target specific intakes on the basis of our research to date,” Poole told Healio Internal Medicine. “The associations seen between coffee drinking and health outcomes could still be confounded by other factors and interventional research is needed before we can be sure about causation. However, if patients are already drinking coffee they could be reassured that it is more likely of benefit than harm.”
“Some patients might be more sensitive than others to the physiological effects of caffeine and those expressing such symptoms could be advised to cut down or drink decaffeinated coffee,” he added.
Poole noted that until more research is conducted, women with higher risk for or established fracture or osteoporosis should be advised to keep coffee drinking to a minimum.
“Our research was about coffee, not about things we add or consume with coffee such as sugar, syrup, biscuits, cakes and pastries,” Poole said. “Standard health messages still apply for those foods. In other words, we would encourage existing coffee drinkers to make their coffee as healthy as possible.” – by Alaina Tedesco
Disclosure: Poole reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.