Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages, worldwide. Scientists found that higher coffee consumption is linked to reducing the risk of mortality.
Highlights
- Coffee can be a part of healthy diet in healthy people
- Drinking four cups of coffee daily may cut the risk of death, thereby increasing life expectancy
- The risk of all-cause mortality is lowered by 64 percent in participants who consumed four cups of coffee every day
In previous studies, scientists have suggested that drinking coffee might be inversely linked with all-cause mortality. However, in a Mediterranean country, this has not been investigated.
Link between Coffee Consumption and The Risk of Mortality
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between coffee consumption and the risk of mortality in a middle-aged Mediterranean cohort.
Within the framework of the Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra (SUN) Project, this study was conducted. It’s a long-term prospective cohort study started in 1999 and about more than 22 500 Spanish university graduates participated in the study.
The participants were validated previously for the semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire to collect information on their coffee consumption, lifestyle, socio-demographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements and for previous health conditions.
Cox regression model was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95 percent confidence intervals (CI) for incident mortality, according to baseline total coffee consumption adjusted for potential confounders and during this ten year period, about 337 participants died.
Risk of All-cause Mortality Lowered
Participants of this study, who consumed at least four cups of coffee per day were found to have a 64 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who never consumed or almost never consumed coffee (adjusted HR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.19-0.70).
The research team found a 22 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality for each two additional cups of coffee per day (adjusted HR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.66-0.92).
The research team examined whether participants sex, age or adherence to the Mediterranean diet has any influence on the link between baseline coffee consumption and mortality.
The research team observed a significant interaction between coffee consumption and age (p for interaction=0.0016).
In those participants, who were at least 45 years old, and drank two additional cups of coffee per day were found to be linked with 30 percent reduced risk of mortality (adjusted HR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.58-0.85), during follow-up. It was found that there was no significant link found in younger participants.
"In the SUN project, we found an inverse association between drinking coffee and the risk of all-cause mortality, particularly in people aged 45 years and above. This may be due to a stronger protective association among older participants," said Dr. Navarro.
The findings of this study suggest that drinking four cups of coffee per day can be part of a healthy diet in healthy people.
Source-Medindia