Regular and moderate consumption of coffee and caffeine may help reduce the risk of developing multiple cardiometabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, according to a study that suggests its protective effect on health.
Coffee lovers no longer know which card to choose because although it is recommended to moderate their intake and that people with certain health problems eliminate it from their daily diet, studies also appear every so often that relate its components with health benefits. In fact, a new study investigation of the Endocrine Society reveals that the Regular consumption of moderate amounts of coffee and caffeine may have a protective effect against various cardiometabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke.
Researchers found that regular coffee or caffeine consumption, especially at moderate levels, was associated with a lower likelihood of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CM), which refers to the coexistence of at least two cardiometabolic diseases.
The study notes that the prevalence of people with multiple cardiometabolic diseases is increasing globally as populations age, becoming a public health challenge, and coffee and caffeine consumption could play a protective role in almost all phases of the development of cardiometabolic multimorbidity, according to the researchers, who have published their findings in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism .
“Consuming three cups of coffee a day, or 200 to 300 mg of caffeine, may help reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in people without a history of these diseases,” said Dr. Chaofu Ke, senior author of the study and a member of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the School of Public Health at Suzhou Medical College in China.
The protective effect of three cups of coffee a day
The study showed that compared to those who did not consume caffeine or consumed less than 100 mg of this substance daily, people who drank moderate amounts of coffee (three cups daily) or caffeine (200-300 mg daily) had a 48.1% and 40.7% reduction in the risk of developing new cardiometabolic diseases.
Ke and his team based their findings on data from the UK Biobank, a large longitudinal study that included more than 500,000 participants aged 37 to 73 years. The analysis excluded those with ambiguous information about caffeine consumption, and focused on 172,315 individuals with no history of cardiometabolic disease for the caffeine analysis, and 188,091 for the coffee and tea consumption analysis. Participants’ cardiometabolic diseases were identified from self-reported medical conditions, primary care data, hospitalizations, and death records linked to the UK Biobank.
The study found that coffee and caffeine consumption at any level was inversely related to the risk of developing new cardiometabolic diseases in previously healthy people. Participants who consumed moderate amounts of coffee or caffeine showed the lowest risk. “These findings underscore that promoting moderate coffee or caffeine consumption as a dietary habit in healthy people could have significant benefits in preventing cardiometabolic diseases,” Ke added.
People who drank coffee (three cups a day) or caffeine (200-300 mg a day) had a 48.1% and 40.7% reduction in the risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases.
Although numerous studies have demonstrated the protective effects of coffee, tea and caffeine consumption on the morbidity of individual cardiometabolic diseases, the impact of these beverages on the development of cardiometabolic multimorbidity was unclear until now.
The authors reviewed existing research and found that people with a single cardiometabolic disease have twice the risk of all-cause mortality compared to healthy people. On the other hand, those with cardiometabolic multimorbidity have up to a 4- to 7-fold increased risk of mortality. They further noted that cardiometabolic multimorbidity entails higher risks of loss of physical function and mental stress compared to having a single disease.
