CoastWatcher
Moderator
Slightly over a year ago the World Health Organization officially decided that coffee was no longer bad for you. Recently, the British Medical Journal reviewed the evidence across meta-analyses of observational and interventional studies of coffee consumption and any health outcome.
"Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes," British Medical Journal, 22 November 2017, http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5024
- The umbrella review identified 201 meta-analyses of observational research with 67 unique health outcomes and 17 meta-analyses of interventional research with nine unique outcomes.
- Coffee consumption was more often associated with benefit than harm for a range of health outcomes.
- There was evidence of a non-linear association between consumption and some outcomes, with summary estimates indicating largest relative risk reduction at intakes of three to four cups a day versus none, including:
- all cause mortality (relative risk 0.83, 95% confidence interval 0.83 to 0.88),
- cardiovascular mortality (0.81, 0.72 to 0.90),
- and cardiovascular disease (0.85, 0.80 to 0.90).
- High versus low consumption was associated with an 18% lower risk of incident cancer (0.82, 0.74 to 0.89). Consumption was also associated with a lower risk of several specific cancers and neurological, metabolic, and liver conditions.
- Harmful associations were largely nullified by adequate adjustment for smoking, except in pregnancy. There was also an association between coffee drinking and risk of fracture in women but not in men.
"Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes," British Medical Journal, 22 November 2017, http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5024
