According to a new study, moderate coffee drinkers are less likely to die than non-coffee drinkers. This is true even for people who sweeten their coffee with sugar.
Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages in the United States and the world. In fact, according to the National Coffee Association, 66% of Americans drink coffee every day, making it the most popular beverage – even more than tap water!
With all this consumption, it is fortunate that studies have found possible health benefits from drinking coffee, including a link with a lower risk of death.
Researchers wondered if this connection was true for sweetened coffee or a spoonful of sugar would reduce the benefits. The results were good news for coffee drinkers who love sweets, as they found a reduced risk of death in moderate drinkers of both unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee.
A new cohort study found that people who do not drink coffee, adults who drink moderate amounts (1.5 to 3.5 cups a day) of unsweetened coffee or coffee sweetened with sugar are less likely to die during a 7-year follow-up period. The results for those who have used artificial sweeteners are less clear. The results are published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Previous studies examining the health effects of coffee have found that coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of death, but does not distinguish between unsweetened coffee and coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Researchers found that those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee a day sweetened with sugar were 29 to 31 percent less likely to die than people who did not drink coffee.
Researchers from the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China used data from the UK Biobank Health Behavior Questionnaire to assess associations of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened and unsweetened coffee consumption with mortality from all causes and causes. More than 171,000 participants from the United Kingdom without known heart disease or cancer were asked several questions about dietary and health behavior to determine coffee consumption habits.
The authors found that during the 7-year follow-up period, participants who drank any amount of unsweetened coffee were 16 to 21 percent 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 coffee a day sweetened with sugar were 29 to 31 percent less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee. The authors note that adults who drink sugar-sweetened coffee add on average only about 1 teaspoon of sugar per cup of coffee. The results were unconvincing for participants who used artificial sweeteners in their coffee.
An accompanying editorial by the editors of the Annals of Internal Medicine notes that while coffee has qualities that could make possible health benefits, confusing variables include more difficult to measure differences in socioeconomic status, diet and other factors. lifestyle can affect the findings. The authors add that data on participants is at least 10 years old and was collected from a country where tea is an equally popular beverage. They warn that the average daily sugar content of a cup of coffee recorded in this analysis is much lower than the specialty drinks in popular coffee chain restaurants, and many coffee consumers may drink it instead of other beverages, making comparisons with non-coffee drinkers -difficult. .
Based on these data, clinicians can tell their patients that most coffee drinkers do not need to eliminate the beverage from their diet, but be careful with higher-calorie specialty coffees.
References:
“Effectiveness and harms of contraceptive counseling and interventions to ensure women: a systematic review and meta-analysis” by Heidi D. Nelson, MD, MPH, Amy Cantor, MD, MPH, Rebecca M. Jungbauer, DrPH, MA, Karen B. Eden, PhD, Blair Darney, PhD, MPH, Katherine Ahrens, PhD, MPH, Amanda Burgess, MPPM, Chandler Atchison, MPH, Rose Goueth, MS and Rongwei Fu, PhD, May 24, 2022, Annals of Internal Medicine.DOI : 10.73 / M21-4380
“The Potential Health Benefits of Coffee: Does a Spoonful of Sugar Make Everything Disappear?” By Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH, May 31, 2022, Annals of Internal Medicine.DOI: 10.7326 / M22-1465
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