Does drinking coffee cause osteoporosis? Is caffeine addictive? Does coffee cause cancer? Five professional organizations released a scientific consensus on coffee and health (2024)

October 20th of every year is World Osteoporosis Day. According to the national osteoporosis epidemiological survey data released in 2018, the number of people suffering from osteoporosis in my country is currently about 90 million. In daily life, I believe many people have heard that "drinking coffee causes osteoporosis". Is this really the case?

Recently, the "Scientific Consensus on Coffee and Health (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as "the Consensus") jointly released by five institutions, namely, the China Food and Health Information Exchange Center, the Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Food and Nutrition Development of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Health Communication Branch of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, and the Special Food Research Center of China Agricultural University, provides answers to the relationship between coffee and many health effects such as osteoporosis, cancer, addiction, and insomnia. (Note: The views of this Consensus are based on black coffee, including freshly ground coffee and instant coffee.)

Excessive coffee consumption does increase the risk of osteoporosis and should be limited to 3 to 5 cups per day.

The consensus states that drinking coffee in moderation is safe and beneficial to health. Dietary guidelines and recommendations in countries and regions such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland also list coffee as a recommended healthy drink. However, excessive caffeine does increase the risk of osteoporosis. For healthy adults, daily caffeine intake should be controlled within 400 mg, which is approximately equivalent to 3-5 cups of coffee. It should be noted that although coffee is often measured in "cups", there is no uniform standard for the size of a cup, so the recommendations for cup size are for reference only.

Chen Junshi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, reminded the public that the caffeine consumed by Chinese people currently mainly comes from tea. In addition to coffee, some carbonated drinks, functional drinks, and ready-made drinks (such as milk tea) also contain a lot of caffeine. You can control the total amount of caffeine in your daily drinking, and increase your dietary calcium intake (such as drinking more milk) to balance the potential calcium loss.

Caffeine does not have an addictive mechanism and discomfort can be avoided by gradually reducing intake

Many coffee lovers who drink at least one cup a day often experience this: if they stop drinking for a few days, they immediately start to feel sluggish, or even have unbearable headaches, which may be a withdrawal reaction. Some people start to doubt themselves: Is this the legendary "caffeine addiction"?

The "Consensus" also responded to this public concern: Currently available scientific evidence does not support "caffeine addiction". People who are accustomed to drinking coffee may experience headaches, fatigue, mood swings, etc. if they stop drinking coffee, but these discomforts are transient (Editor's note: "transient" refers to a clinical symptom or sign that appears once in a short period of time, often with obvious inducements, such as after eating certain foods, taking certain medications, receiving certain clinical treatments, or other factors that affect the body). There is no addiction mechanism, and the above-mentioned phenomena can be avoided by gradually reducing caffeine intake.

No evidence that coffee causes cancer, can it reduce the risk of liver cancer and endometrial cancer

As for some rumors circulating in society about "coffee causing cancer", the International Agency for Research on Cancer, based on a comprehensive evaluation of thousands of studies, stated that "there is insufficient evidence that coffee increases the risk of human cancer." At the same time, there is strong evidence that coffee can reduce the risk of liver cancer and endometrial cancer.

Pregnant women and adolescents are not encouraged to drink coffee. The daily intake of adolescents should not exceed 2.5-3 mg per kilogram of body weight.

Regarding whether pregnant women and teenagers can drink coffee, Zhong Kai, director of the Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center, also reminded the public that there are large individual differences in the human body's response to caffeine, and the frequency and amount of drinking should be controlled according to one's own situation. For example, pregnant women are not encouraged to drink coffee, but if pregnant women do not consume more than 2-3 cups of coffee (about 200mg of caffeine) a day, it will not have an adverse effect on the fetus; children and teenagers are not encouraged to drink coffee. If they must drink it, it is recommended that the daily caffeine intake should be controlled to no more than 2.5-3mg per kilogram of body weight.

Written by: Ruan Guangfeng (Deputy Director and Associate Research Librarian of the Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center)

Editors: Ji Jingjing, Zhao Ling

Image provided by: Visual China