Coffee ups risk of intracranial aneurysm

Drinking coffee appears to increase the risk of intracranial aneurysm (IA) and associated haemorrhage, reveals a study. Thus, coffee intake must be reduced for people at risk of IA.

Previous observational studies reported links between coffee and tea consumption and IA risk, but the results were not consistent. To address this, a group of researchers conducted a Mendelian randomization study to determine whether genetically predicted coffee and tea intake had a causal effect on IA and its subtypes.

Large genome-wide association studies (GWAS), including a total of 349,376 samples, were used to identify genetic variants correlating with coffee and tea consumption based on cups per day. The researchers adopted summary-level data for IA from a GWAS in 79,429 subjects (23 cohorts, 7,495 cases, and 71,934 controls).

Genetically predicted coffee consumption correlated with an increased risk of any IA and aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), but not with unruptured IA.

The odds ratios for every 1-cup/day increase in genetically predicted coffee intake were 1.42 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.09‒1.86; p=0.010) for IA, 1.51 (95 percent CI, 1.13‒2.03; p=0.005) for aneurysmal SAH, and 1.20 (95 percent CI, 0.74‒1.96; p=0.460) for unruptured IA.

On the other hand, genetically predicted tea consumption showed no significant association with the risk of any IA and its subtypes (p>0.05).

Sensitivity analyses confirmed these associations. In addition, evidence of pleiotropy was not found.