title: Association of coffee drinking with total and cause-specific mortality.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages, but the association between coffee consumption and the risk of death remains unclear.
  
  
  METHODS
  We examined the association of coffee drinking with subsequent total and cause-specific mortality among 229,119 men and 173,141 women in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study who were 50 to 71 years of age at baseline. Participants with cancer, heart disease, and stroke were excluded. Coffee consumption was assessed once at baseline.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During 5,148,760 person-years of follow-up between 1995 and 2008, a total of 33,731 men and 18,784 women died. In age-adjusted models, the risk of death was increased among coffee drinkers. However, coffee drinkers were also more likely to smoke, and, after adjustment for tobacco-smoking status and other potential confounders, there was a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality. Adjusted hazard ratios for death among men who drank coffee as compared with those who did not were as follows: 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.95 to 1.04) for drinking less than 1 cup per day, 0.94 (95% CI, 0.90 to 0.99) for 1 cup, 0.90 (95% CI, 0.86 to 0.93) for 2 or 3 cups, 0.88 (95% CI, 0.84 to 0.93) for 4 or 5 cups, and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.85 to 0.96) for 6 or more cups of coffee per day (P<0.001 for trend); the respective hazard ratios among women were 1.01 (95% CI, 0.96 to 1.07), 0.95 (95% CI, 0.90 to 1.01), 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83 to 0.92), 0.84 (95% CI, 0.79 to 0.90), and 0.85 (95% CI, 0.78 to 0.93) (P<0.001 for trend). Inverse associations were observed for deaths due to heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, but not for deaths due to cancer. Results were similar in subgroups, including persons who had never smoked and persons who reported very good to excellent health at baseline.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this large prospective study, coffee consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality. Whether this was a causal or associational finding cannot be determined from our data. (Funded by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.).
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD 20852, USA. freedmanne@mail.nih.gov
authors.forename: Neal D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Freedman
authors.forename: Yikyung
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Christian C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Abnet
authors.forename: Albert R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Hollenbeck
authors.forename: Rashmi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sinha
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D003069:Coffee / Q000009:adverse effects; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D012306:Risk; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D003069:Coffee