Globally, around 158 million bags of coffee are produced each year, with the Scandinavian nations, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Canada forming the top ten coffee drinking countries. [http://ico.org]
So what, if any, are the health effects of our coffee consumption? Historically coffee was thought to have a negative effect on health by raising blood pressure but more recently research suggests that compounds in coffee, including polyphenols, are good for us, and there may be an association between coffee consumption and lowered risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers.
Team NNEdPro set out to investigate – keep reading to find two of our outputs on link between coffee and health!
Grosso G, Micek A, Godos J, Pajak A, Sciacca S, Bes-Rastrollo M, Galvano F, Martinez-Gonzalez MA. Long-Term Coffee Consumption Is Associated with Decreased Incidence of New-Onset Hypertension: A Dose-Response Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2017
Deputy Co-Lead of our Global Innovation Panel Giuseppe Grosso, based at the University of Catania, lead an analysis on the effect of coffee consumption on blood pressure. The analysis included seven cohort studies, involving more than 205,000 people – including nurses, post-menopausal women and post-graduates from across North America and Europe. The analysis found a linear association between drinking coffee and lowered risk of high blood pressure i.e. as we drink more coffee (up to 7 cups a day), the risk of developing high blood pressure appears to decrease. Good news for coffee lovers, but until further research is carried out on the effect of coffee on blood pressure we should stick to keeping salt intake low, aiming for a healthy weight and increasing our activity levels to keep blood pressure down.
NNEdPro Directors Daniele Del Rio and Shumone Ray, led by NNEdPro Collaborator Justyna Godos, carried out an analysis of observational studies on the effect of coffee consumption on biliary tract cancers and liver cancer. Five studies on biliary tract cancers, involving 1,375,626 participants, and thirteen studies on liver cancer, involving 2,105,104 participants, were included in the analysis. The findings showed that there was an inverse association between drinking coffee and liver cancer – as coffee consumption increases, the risk of developing liver cancer appears to decrease. However, no association was found between coffee consumption and biliary tract cancers, possibly due to the low number of studies investigating this and so more research is required to help draw out a conclusion.
Overall then, some positive effects of coffee on health! These are just two our papers looking at coffee and health though – check out our Science Journals page for more studies and let us know what you think!