Coffee drinking may lead to longer life

Coffee lovers now have more reasons to enjoy their drink, with a recent study showing that moderate consumption, whether sugar-sweetened or not, helps reduce the risk for death.

A prospective cohort study in China was conducted using data extracted from the UK Biobank and included 171,616 participants (mean age 55.6 years) without cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer at baseline. Baseline demographic, lifestyle, and dietary data were analysed, with follow-up starting in 2009 and ending in 2018.

Lead investigator Dan Liu and his team estimated all-cause, cancer-related, and CVD-related mortality among participants, who self-reported their dietary consumption of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee.

A total of 3,117 deaths occurred, including 1,725 cancer- and 628 CVD-related deaths, during a median follow-up of 7.0 years. In Cox models with penalized splines, U-shaped associations were observed between coffee, whether sweetened or unsweetened, and mortality.

After adjustment for lifestyle, sociodemographic, and clinical factors, drinkers of various amounts of unsweetened coffee had lower risks for all-cause mortality (>0 to 1.5 drinks/day: hazard ratio [HR], 0.79, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.70‒0.90; >1.5 to 2.5: HR, 0.84, 95 percent CI, 0.74‒0.95; >2.5 to 3.5: HR, 0.71, 95 percent CI, 0.62‒0.82; >3.5 to 4.5: HR, 0.71, 95 percent CI, 0.60‒0.84; >4.5: HR, 0.77, 95 percent CI, 0.65‒0.91).

The respective HRs for consumption of sugar-sweetened coffee were as follows: 0.91 (95 percent CI, 0.78‒1.07), 0.69 (95 percent CI, 0.57‒0.84), 0.72 (95 percent CI, 0.57‒0.91), 0.79 (95 percent CI, 0.60‒1.06), and 1.05 (95 percent CI, 0.82‒1.36). On the other hand, the association of artificially sweetened coffee with mortality was less consistent.

Furthermore, the association between coffee drinking and death from cancer or CVD was consistent with that with all-cause mortality. Of note, U-shaped associations were also seen for instant, ground, and decaffeinated coffee.

As a limitation of the study, the investigators only assessed exposure at baseline, which might not capture changes in intake over time.