A new cohort study found that adults who drank moderate amounts (1.5 to 3.5 cups per day) of unsweetened or sweetened coffee were less likely to die during the 7-year follow-up period than those who did not drink coffee, and the results of those who used artificial sweeteners were less clear. The findings were published in the annals of internal medicine.
Previous studies on the health effects of coffee found that drinking coffee was associated with a lower risk of death, but did not distinguish between unsweetened coffee and coffee with sugar or artificial sweeteners. The researchers found that those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of sweetened coffee a day were 29 to 31 percent less likely to die than those who did not drink coffee.
Researchers from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, used data from the British biobank research health behavior questionnaire to assess the relationship between drinking sugared, artificially sweetened and unsweetened coffee and all-cause and cause specific mortality. More than 171000 participants from the UK without known heart disease or cancer were asked several diet and health behavior questions to determine coffee consumption habits.
The authors found that during the 7-year follow-up period, participants who drank any amount of sugar free 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 sweetened coffee a day were 29 to 31 percent less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee. The authors point out that adults who drink sweetened coffee only add about 1 teaspoon of sugar per cup of coffee. For participants who used artificial sweeteners in coffee, the results were uncertain.
The editors of annals of Internal Medicine published an accompanying review, pointing out that although the quality of coffee can benefit health, confounding variables, including differences in socio-economic status, diet and other lifestyle factors that are more difficult to measure, may affect the research results. The authors add that the participants' data are at least 10 years old and were collected from a country where tea is a more mainstream popular drink. They cautioned that the average daily sugar content per cup of coffee recorded in this analysis was much lower than the specialty drinks of popular coffee chains, and many coffee consumers may use it to replace other drinks, which makes it more difficult to compare with non drinkers.
Based on these data, clinicians can tell their patients that most coffee drinkers do not need to eliminate this drink from their diet for health reasons, but should be cautious about high calorie special coffee drinks.