Coffee Consumption and Coronary Heart Disease in Men and Women A Prospective Cohort Study Coronary Heart Disease

Background —We examined the association between long-term habitual coffee consumption and risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods and Results —We performed a prospective cohort study with 44 005 men and 84 488 women without history of cardiovascular disease or cancer. Coffee consumption was first assessed in 1986 for men and in 1980 for women and then repeatedly every 2 to 4 years; the follow-up continued through 2000. We documented 2173 incident cases of coronary heart disease (1449 nonfatal myocardial infarctions and 724 fatal cases of CHD) among men and 2254 cases (1561 nonfatal myocardial infarctions and 693 fatal cases of CHD) among women. Among men, after adjustment for age, smoking, and other CHD risk factors, the relative risks (RRs) of CHD across categories of cumulative coffee consumption ( (cid:1) 1 cup/mo, 1 cup/mo to 4 cups/wk, 5 to 7 cups/wk, 2 to 3 cups/d, 4 to 5 cups/d, and (cid:1) 6 cups/d) were 1.0, 1.04 (95% confidence interval 0.91 to 1.17), 1.02 (0.91 to 1.15), 0.97 (0.86 to 1.11), 1.07 (0.88 to 1.31), and 0.72 (0.49 to 1.07; P for trend (cid:2) 0.41); among women, the RRs were 1.0, 0.97 (0.83 to 1.14), 1.02 (0.90 to 1.17), 0.84 (0.74 to 0.97), 0.99 (0.83 to 1.17), and 0.87 (0.68 to 1.11; P for trend (cid:2) 0.08). Stratification by smoking status, alcohol consumption, history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, and body mass index gave similar results. Similarly, we found no effect when the most recent coffee consumption was examined. RRs for quintiles of caffeine intake varied from 0.97 (0.84 to 1.10) in the second quintile to 0.97 (0.84 to 1.11) in the highest quintile ( P for trend (cid:2) 0.82) in men and from 1.02 (0.90 to 1.16) to 0.97 (0.85 to 1.11; P for trend (cid:2) 0.37) in women. Conclusions data do not provide any evidence that coffee consumption increases the risk of ( Circulation . 2006;113:2045-2053.) cholesterol. We conducted these analyses in men and women who were selected as control subjects in 2 previous nested case-control studies of MI. 27 Blood samples were collected in 1990 in women and 1994 in men; therefore, we used dietary information from the 1990 food frequency questionnaire for women and from the 1994 food frequency questionnaire for men. We calculated multivariable-adjusted means of plasma cholesterol levels across categories of consumption. All analyses were performed with SAS software, version 8.2 (SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC). The authors had full access to the data and take responsibility for its integrity. All authors have read and agree to the manuscript as written.