Abstract

CAFFEINE CONSUMPTION AND THE PREVALENCE OF CHRONIC DISEASE

*Andrew P. Smith PhD.

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Abstract

Background: There have been several previous reviews of associations between caffeine consumption and health. These show that there is a need to examine this issue in representative samples and consider chronic disease, recurring health problems and acute illness. This paper presents information about caffeine consumption and the prevalence of chronic disease. Methods: This paper reports the results of secondary analysis of epidemiological data from a representative sample of 6306 UK adults (58.6% working; 45.6 % male; 65% married or cohabiting, 18.5% single, and 15.2% divorced or widowed). Analyses examined associations between caffeine consumption and reporting of lifetime occurrence of chronic diseases, controlling for potential confounders. Results: Initial cross-tabulations revealed that caffeine consumption was associated with reduced risk of angina, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, depression and bronchitis. When demographic and lifestyle covariates were included in the analyses, only the associations with depression and bronchitis remained significant. Conclusion: The present results show no significant negative health effects associated with caffeine consumption. Indeed, before adjusting for covariates, many of the associations between caffeine and health were positive. Possible reasons for this are discussed. When demographic and lifestyle covariates were included in the models, the only significant effects were that caffeine was associated with a lower prevalence of depression and bronchitis. Plausible biological mechanisms exist for these two effects.

Keywords: Caffeine; chronic disease; depression; bronchitis.