Moderate amounts of coffee and caffeine may serve a protective effect against developing multiple cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Drinking coffee or having caffeine regularly in moderate amounts was associated with a lower risk of new-onset cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CM), which is when people have at least two cardiometabolic diseases.
“Consuming three cups of coffee, or 200 to 300 milligrams caffeine, per day might help to reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in individuals without any cardiometabolic disease,” Chaofu Ke, MD, PhD, the study author and a researcher from the School of Public Health at Suzhou Medical College of Soochow University, in Suzhou, China, said in a press release.
Compared with those who had less than 100 milligrams of caffeine per day, those who had three coffee drinks each day, or 200 to 300 milligrams of caffeine, had a 48.1% or 40.7% reduced risk for new-onset CM, respectively.
A total of 172,315 individuals were included for a caffeine analysis, along with 188,091 individuals who drank coffee and tea. People had cardiometabolic diseases at the start of the study.
Coffee and caffeine intake at all levels were inversely associated with the risk of new-onset CM in those without cardiometabolic diseases. People who reported moderate coffee or caffeine intake had the lowest risk for CM; moderate intake was inversely associated with almost all developmental stages of CM.
“The findings highlight that promoting moderate amounts of coffee or caffeine intake as a dietary habit to healthy people might have far-reaching benefits for the prevention of CM,” Ke said.
The authors said that previous research has shown that people with a single cardiometabolic disease may have twice the all-cause mortality risk of those free of any cardiometabolic diseases. In this study, they found that individuals with CM may have a nearly four to seven times higher risk of all-cause mortality. CM may come with higher risks of loss of physical function and mental stress than just one disease, the authors reported.
