Can coffee offer protection against the diseases that either kill us or make us chronically ill?

Yet another study says “yes”.

These are cardiometabolic diseases, an umbrella term for cardiovascular issues and metabolic issues.

Taken together, they’re a cluster of common and usually preventable conditions. They include heart attack, stroke, diabetes, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

These diseases account for more than twice the number of deaths caused by cancer. Obesity and hypertension are two main risk factors.

New research – from the School of Public Health at Suzhou Medical College of Soochow University, China – found that “regular coffee or caffeine intake, especially at moderate levels, was associated with a lower risk of new-onset cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CM)”.

New-onset cardiometabolic multimorbidity refers to developing at least two cardiometabolic diseases.

The study found that compared with non-consumers or consumers of less than 100 milligrams caffeine a day, consumers of a moderate amount of coffee (three drinks a day) or caffeine (200-300 milligrams a day) had a 48.1 per cent or 40.7 per cent reduced risk for new-onset CM.

The findings were based on data from the UK Biobank, a large and detailed longitudinal dietary study with more than 500,000 participants aged 37 to 73 years.

The study’s lead author was Dr Chaofu Ke of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“Consuming three cups of coffee, or 200-300 milligrams caffeine, per day might help to reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in individuals without any cardiometabolic disease,” he said.

Lifestyle overhaul largely ignored

The standard advice regarding prevention, or putting some of these CM conditions into remission, has been touted for years.

The best way to protect your heart and metabolic health is to do more exercise, eat a healthy balanced diet, don’t smoke, don’t abuse alcohol and keep to a regular sleep pattern.

According to the Heart Foundation:

• Only one in four adults believe that being overweight or obese is a risk factor for developing heart disease
• Only one in three adults believe that smoking is a key risk factor to developing heart disease
• Only one-third of adults believe that low levels of exercise is a key risk factor for heart disease
• Only one in 10 Australian adults believe that alcohol consumption is a risk factor for heart disease
• The average adult eats fewer than half the recommended serves of vegetables a day.

Multiple disease and risk of death

Once you develop one cardiometabolic disease, it’s almost certain you’ll develop others.

Diabetes, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease often go hand in hand.

With this comes a significantly higher risk of early death.

The Soochow researchers found that “people with single cardiometabolic disease may have a two-fold higher all-cause mortality risk than those free of any cardiometabolic diseases”.

By contrast, they found that people with CM diseases “may have an almost four to seven times higher risk of all-cause mortality”.

The researchers also noted that multiple CM “may present higher risks of loss of physical function and mental stress than those with single diseases”.

Coffee as a workout

In a previous study, the Soochow University researchers found that drinking coffee appears to be protective against early death, and death from heart disease, notably in people who sit down all day.

Specifically, the researchers found that “participants who sat for six hours or more a day, and drank coffee, were 1.58 times less likely to die from all causes than non-coffee drinkers of all causes, for as many as 13 years later”.

How significant was this?

The long-standing remedy for sedentary behaviour is an obvious one: Get up and move around.

However, the efficacy of exercise in offsetting the damage done sitting around remains a matter of argument.

As Science Alert in its report on the findings commented: The study “essentially cancels out the association between sedentary lifestyles, death from cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality”.

This is “pretty incredible given that studies suggest even bouts of exercise may not fully protect against the long-term health downsides of prolonged sitting, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke”.

In other words, if the findings are correct – and the concept certainly needs to be rigorously tested – coffee may be enough to protect us against the ravages of inactivity.