Heavy coffee drinking adds to death risk: Study

Some debates refuse to die, and the debate over coffee's health risks appears to be of that variety. A new study has found heavy coffee consumption was associated with a higher death risk in men and women younger than 55.

In the study published online on Thursday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, men younger than 55 who consumed over 28 cups of coffee a week (four cups a day) were found to be 56 per cent more likely to have died from any cause. Women in that age group had a two-fold greater risk of dying than other women. The study involved 43,727 men and women aged 20-87 from 1971 to 2002.

According to Xuemei Sui, the study's second co-author, from their study, it seemed safe to drink one to three cups of coffee a day. Sui assistant professor of exercise science with the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, added coffee consumption of over four cups daily could endanger health. According to her definition, a cup of coffee measured 6 to 8 ounces.

The study did not point to higher death risk for adults 55 and older. Sui said there might be a bias with the research, including unhealthy older people because they might have already died.

The researchers found that although heavy coffee drinking went with smoking and drinking, in among the 40,000 participants and thus contributing to a lower cardio-respiratory fitness among them, the higher risk of death was independent of those lifestyle variables in the multivariable analysis.

In the study population taken as a whole, among those under 55 and those over 55 only men among the heavy coffee drinkers had an increased risk of all-cause death (21 per cent).

Meanwhile, the latest National Coffee Drinking Study from the National Coffee Association has found that 83 per cent of American adults drank coffee every day, "a five-point uptick compared with last year's study."

The study found that Hispanics reported the heaviest coffee consumption amongst ethnic groups with 76 per cent saying they had drunk coffee the day before the survey, as against 64 per cent of Caucasians and 47 per cent of African Americans. Hispanics also held the leading position in gourmet coffee consumption.

The coffee association also reported that Americans in the 40-to-59-year range had increased their intake of daily coffee, going from 65 per cent to 69 per cent.