Summary: Those who drink sweetened coffee daily are up to 31% less likely to die within a 7-year follow-up than non-coffee drinkers. Those who drank unsweetened coffee were 21% less likely to die during follow-up.
Source: American College of Physicians
A cohort study found that adults who drank moderate amounts (1.5 to 3.5 cups per day) of unsweetened or sugar-sweetened coffee were less likely to die compared to non-coffee drinkers over a 7-year follow-up period.
The results for those using artificial sweeteners were less conclusive.
The results are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Previous studies monitoring the health effects of coffee have found that coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of death, but did not differentiate between unsweetened coffee and coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Researchers at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, used data from the Health Behavior Questionnaire of the British Biobank Study to assess the associations of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee consumption with all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
More than 171,000 UK participants with no known history of heart disease or cancer were asked multiple questions about diet and health behaviors to determine coffee consumption habits.
- The authors found that during the 7-year follow-up, participants who drank any amount of unsweetened coffee were 16% to 21% less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee.
- They also found that participants who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of sugar-sweetened coffee daily had a 29 to 31% lower risk of death than participants who did not drink coffee.
- The authors found that adults who drank sugar-sweetened coffee only added about 1 teaspoon of sugar per cup of coffee, on average.
- The results were inconclusive for participants who used artificial sweeteners in their coffee.
All accompanying editorials by the editors of Annals of Internal Medicine points out that while coffee has qualities that could enable health benefits, confounding variables, including more difficult-to-measure differences in socioeconomic status, diet, and other lifestyle factors, can influence results.
The authors add that the participant data is at least 10 years old and from a country where tea is a similarly popular drink.
They point out that the average amount of daily sugar per cup of coffee captured in this analysis is much lower than specialty beverages at popular coffee chain restaurants, and many coffee consumers may be drinking it in place of other beverages, making comparisons with non-drinkers difficult.
Based on this data, doctors can tell their patients that while most coffee drinkers do not need to eliminate the beverage from their diet, they should be wary of higher-calorie specialty coffees.
About this coffee and mortality research news
Author: press office
Source: American College of Physicians
Contact: Press Office – American College of Physicians
Picture: The image is in the public domain
Original research: Closed access.
“Association of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee consumption with cause- and cause-specific mortality” by Dan Liu et al. Annals of Internal Medicine
“The Potential Health Benefits of Coffee: Does a Spoonful of Sugar Make It All Go Away?” by Christina C. Wee. Annals of Internal Medicine
Association of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee consumption with cause-specific and cause-specific mortality
Previous observational studies have suggested an association between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of death, but these studies have not differentiated between coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners and coffee consumed without.
To assess the associations of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee consumption with all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
Prospective cohort study.
The data were taken from the UK Biobank.
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 UK Biobank demographic, lifestyle and dietary data were used, with follow-up beginning in 2009 and ending in 2018.
The dietary consumption of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened and unsweetened coffee was self-reported. All-cause, cancer-related, and cardiovascular mortality were estimated.
During a median follow-up of 7.0 years, 3177 deaths were recorded (including 1725 cancer deaths and 628 cardiovascular disease deaths). Cox models with penalized splines showed U-shaped associations of unsweetened coffee, sugar-sweetened coffee, and artificially sweetened coffee with mortality. Compared to non-consumers, consumers had different 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/day) had a lower risk of 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 sweetened coffee consumption 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 cardiovascular disease was broadly consistent with all-cause mortality. U-shaped associations were also observed for instant, ground, and decaffeinated coffee.
Exposure assessed at baseline may not capture changes in uptake over time.
Moderate consumption of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with a lower risk of death.
Primary Funding Source:
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Young Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by CAST, and Project Supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation.
The potential health benefits of coffee: does a spoonful of sugar make it all go away?
Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages and there has been a long-standing interest in understanding its health effects.
According to a 2022 estimate, Americans drink 517 million cups of coffee a day, and 66% of Americans surveyed reported drinking coffee in the past day.
Much of the previous data on the health effects of coffee is based on observational studies, and these—including two previous studies published by Annals in 2017 by Gunter and colleagues and Park and colleagues—suggest a U-shaped relationship between coffee consumption and all-cause mortality and other health consequences; those who consume moderate amounts of coffee on a daily basis.