Is Coffee Good or Bad for You Today? Part 4

My how quickly time flies by!  It seems like only yesterday when I looked at coffee's inverse link to heart failure, prostate cancer, and basal cell carcinoma, but in fact I wrote that series last summer in July.  So here it is 8 months later and I stumbled upon a cohort study published early online last week before print next month in Stroke, in which the authors inversely linked green tea and coffee consumption to heart and stroke.

To arrive at their conclusions, the authors followed for an average of 13 years 82,369 Japanese 45-74yo free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at intake.  After taking into account all the usual suspects, drinking 2-3 cups/d of green tea was linked to 14% lower risk of all strokes compared to those who rarely drank green tea.  Those who drank >4 cups/d were linked to an even greater 20% reduction in stroke risk compared to non-drinks.

Those who drank 3-6 cups of coffee/wk were linked to 11% lower risk of stroke of any kind compared to rare non-drinkers.  Those who drank 1 cup/day were linked to an even greater 20% lower risk of stroke but drinking >2 cups/d did not further improve (lower) stroke risk.

So before some of you go out & buy more stock in Starbucks (SBUX), remember that this was an observational study such that we can only develop hypotheses.  We have not proven any cause & effect relationship.  Furthermore, before generalizing these results to the global community, remember that this study was performed in middle-age & young-old Japanese.  Whether you have anything in common is open to conjecture.

Bottom line: here is yet another study that suggests that coffee (and green tea) might actually be good for you.

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