Scientists from the Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University found that drinking coffee may be linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer develops when abnormal cells in the prostate gland grow in an uncontrolled way, forming a malignant tumor.
Prostate cancer is the third most common cause of cancer death. One in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer by the age of 85.
It is more common in older men, with over 63% of cases diagnosed in men over 65 years of age.
Coffee gets its kick from caffeine, a natural stimulant that makes you feel more energetic. But the caffeine in coffee doesn’t just wake you up.
It acts on the brain to improve memory, mood, reaction times, and mental function. Caffeine can even improve endurance and performance during exercise, per one study.
Recent studies find that coffee may lower the risk of several types of cancer, including head and neck, colorectal, breast, and liver cancer, although the potential beneficial effects of coffee are not completely understood.
In the current study, researchers aimed to examine the association of coffee drinking with the risk of prostate cancer.
They reviewed 16 studies with more than 57,000 cases of prostate cancer and more than 1 million participants.
The team found higher coffee intake was strongly linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer.
Compared with the lowest level of coffee drinking, the prostate cancer risk was much lower for the highest level of coffee drinking.
There was a strong linear trend for the association. For each increment of one cup of coffee per day, the prostate cancer risk became lower.
The team also found coffee drinking was linked to lower risks of localized, advanced, and fatal prostate cancer.
Based on these findings, researchers suggest that a higher intake of coffee may be associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer.
The research was published in BMJ Open and conducted by Xiaonan Chen et al.
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