Studies on the benefits or risks of coffee drinking continue unabated worldwide, the latest one, from researchers in China, suggesting that people who consume coffee, with or without sugar, may have less risk of an early death, although experts caution the finding may not be down to the brew itself.
Their research found that those who drink a moderate amount of coffee every day, whether sweetened with sugar or not, had a lower risk of death over a seven-year period than those who did not. The results were similar for instant, ground and decaffeinated coffee.
Previous studies have suggested coffee may be beneficial to health, with coffee drinking associated with a lower risk of conditions ranging from chronic liver disease to certain cancers and even dementia, reports The Guardian.
The Chinese study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, is based on data from more than 171,000 participants of the UK BioBank, which has collected genetic, lifestyle and health information from more than 500,000 people since it began in 2006, including details of participants’ coffee-drinking habits.
The team used data from death certificates to track the participants for a median period of seven years from 2009, during which 3,177 people died.
After considering factors including age, sex, ethnicity, educational level, smoking status, amount of physical activity, body mass index and diet, the team found that, compared with those who did not drink the brew, people who consumed unsweetened coffee had the lowest risk of death.
The greatest reduction, a 29% lower risk of death, was seen for those drinking between 2.5 and 4.5 cups a day. Reductions in the risk of death were also seen for coffee sweetened with sugar, at least for those drinking between 1.5 and 3.5 cups a day. The trend was less clear for people who used artificial sweeteners.
However, the study questioned participants about coffee drinking and other habits only once, and relied on self-reporting. Most of those who used sugar added only a spoonful to their drink – meaning it is unclear if the results would hold for speciality coffees with a high sugar content.
Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, who was not involved in the work, cautioned that the findings, while intriguing, were not clear-cut.
“The observational nature of this new study means these conclusions are far from definitive,” he said. “This is because coffee drinkers are in general more affluent and have healthier lives than non-drinkers and I remain unconvinced whether these factors can be overcome in observational studies.” Sattar added that genetic evidence did not link coffee to any important health benefits.
“I would suggest people stick to coffee or tea, preferably without sugar, which most people can adapt to, and try to do all the other things we know keep you healthy – move more, eat and sleep better.”
Study details
Annals of Modern Medicine article – Association of Sugar-Sweetened, Artificially Sweetened, and Unsweetened Coffee Consumption With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality: A large prospective cohort study (Open access)
Dan Liu, Zhi-Hao Li, Dong Shen, Pei-Dong Zhang, et al.
Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on 31 May 2022
Background
Previous observational studies have suggested an association between coffee intake and reduced risk for death, but these studies did not distinguish between coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners and coffee consumed without.
Objective
To evaluate the associations of consumption of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee with all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
Setting
Data were extracted from the UK Biobank.
Participants
A total of 171 616 participants (mean age, 55.6 years [SD, 7.9]) without cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer at baseline were eligible. Baseline demographic, lifestyle, and dietary data from the UK Biobank were used, with follow-up beginning in 2009 and ending in 2018.
Measurements
Dietary consumption of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee was self-reported. All-cause, cancer-related, and CVD-related mortality were estimated.
Results
During a median follow-up of 7.0 years, 3177 deaths were recorded (including 1725 cancer deaths and 628 CVD deaths). Cox models with penalized splines showed U-shaped associations of unsweetened coffee, sugar-sweetened coffee, and artificially sweetened coffee with mortality. Compared with nonconsumers, consumers of various amounts of unsweetened coffee (>0 to 1.5, >1.5 to 2.5, >2.5 to 3.5, >3.5 to 4.5, and >4.5 drinks/d) had lower risks for all-cause mortality after adjustment for lifestyle, sociodemographic, and clinical factors, with respective hazard ratios of 0.79 (95% CI, 0.70 to 0.90), 0.84 (CI, 0.74 to 0.95), 0.71 (CI, 0.62 to 0.82), 0.71 (CI, 0.60 to 0.84), and 0.77 (CI, 0.65 to 0.91); the respective estimates for consumption of sugar-sweetened coffee were 0.91 (CI, 0.78 to 1.07), 0.69 (CI, 0.57 to 0.84), 0.72 (CI, 0.57 to 0.91), 0.79 (CI, 0.60 to 1.06), and 1.05 (CI, 0.82 to 1.36). The association between artificially sweetened coffee and mortality was less consistent. The association of coffee drinking with mortality from cancer and CVD was largely consistent with that with all-cause mortality. U-shaped associations were also observed for instant, ground, and decaffeinated coffee.
Limitation
Exposure assessed at baseline might not capture changes in intake over time.
Conclusion
Moderate consumption of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with lower risk for death.
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