A new study suggests that drinking moderate amounts of coffee or consuming caffeine regularly could help protect against developing multiple cardiometabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that people who drink about three cups of coffee a day, or consume 200–300 mg of caffeine, have a lower risk of developing these health conditions.
The study focused on a condition called cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CM), which means having at least two cardiometabolic diseases at the same time.
With more people developing these conditions as they age, CM has become a growing public health concern worldwide.
The researchers discovered that coffee and caffeine could play an important role in preventing these diseases from developing.
The study was led by Dr. Chaofu Ke from Suzhou Medical College at Soochow University in China.
According to Dr. Ke, “Consuming three cups of coffee, or 200–300 mg of caffeine per day, might help to reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in individuals without any cardiometabolic disease.”
The research was based on data from the UK Biobank, which is a large, long-term study involving over 500,000 participants aged 37 to 73 years.
For this particular study, the researchers analyzed data from 172,315 participants who were free from any cardiometabolic diseases at the start.
They also looked at 188,091 participants for the analysis of coffee and tea consumption. The participants’ health conditions were tracked using self-reported medical information, hospital data, and death records.
The study found that people who consumed moderate amounts of coffee or caffeine had the lowest risk of developing CM.
Specifically, those who drank three cups of coffee a day had a 48.1% lower risk, while those who consumed 200–300 mg of caffeine had a 40.7% reduced risk compared to people who consumed less than 100 mg of caffeine per day.
Coffee and caffeine were found to offer protective benefits during nearly all stages of CM development. In fact, the study showed that even at lower levels of caffeine intake, the risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases was lower.
The study also highlighted the significant impact of having multiple cardiometabolic diseases. People with just one cardiometabolic disease have twice the risk of death from all causes compared to those without any.
However, those with CM face a four to seven times higher risk of death, along with greater challenges related to physical and mental health.
Dr. Ke emphasized that promoting moderate coffee or caffeine intake could be a simple and beneficial dietary habit for healthy individuals, potentially lowering their risk of developing serious health conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
