Coffee break benefits . . . and other stories

Coffee drinking and mortality

Last year in the BMJ, a review of the mountain of observational data on the health effects of coffee drinking concluded that it was beneficial for almost everything, as long as you weren’t pregnant (BMJ doi:10.1136/bmj.j5024). An analysis of data from 500 000 participants in the UK biobank study has just reported the same thing (JAMA Intern Med doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.2425). All cause mortality, and mortality from cancer and cardiovascular disease separately, was lower in coffee drinkers for all levels of coffee intake and the more you drank the better. Polymorphisms in genetic loci that influence …