Drinking coffee is “more likely to benefit health than to harm it” for a range of health outcomes, say researchers in The BMJ today.

Researchers studied the effect of moderate coffee of two-three cup on more than 2000 people and find that it is associated with a lower risk of death and getting heart disease compared with drinking no coffee. Coffee drinking is also associated with lower risks of some cancers, diabetes, liver disease and dementia.

However, they say drinking coffee during pregnancy may be associated with harms, and may be linked to a very small increased risk of fracture in women.

To better understand the effects of coffee consumption on health, a team led by Dr. Robin Poole, Specialist Registrar in Public Health at the University of Southampton, with collaborators from the University of Edinburgh, carried out an umbrella review of 201 studies that had aggregated data from observational research and 17 studies that had aggregated data from clinical trials across all countries and all settings.

Finally, there seemed to be beneficial associations between coffee consumption and Parkinson’s disease, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.

In a linked editorial, Eliseo Guallar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says, although we can be reassured that coffee intake is generally safe, doctors should not recommend drinking coffee to prevent disease — and people should not start drinking coffee for health reasons.

As this study shows, some people may be at higher risk of adverse effects, he writes, and there is “substantial uncertainty” about the effects of higher levels of intake. Finally, coffee is often consumed with products rich in refined sugars and unhealthy fats, “and these may independently contribute to adverse health outcomes,” he adds.

However, even with these caveats, “moderate coffee consumption seems remarkably safe, and it can be incorporated as part of a healthy diet by most of the adult population,” he concludes.

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Materials provided by BMJ. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Robin Poole, Oliver J Kennedy, Paul Roderick, Jonathan A Fallowfield, Peter C Hayes, Julie Parkes. Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. BMJ, 2017; j5024 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j5024