Genetic analysis of coffee drinking behavior by Drs. Gunn-Helen Moen, Daniel Hwang, and Caroline Brito Nunes from the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience revealed that limited coffee consumption during pregnancy did not increase the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, or premature birth.
"Current World Health Organisation guidelines say pregnant women should drink less than 300mg of caffeine or two to three cups per day," Dr. Moen said.
"But that's based on observational studies where it's difficult to separate coffee drinking from other risk factors like smoking, alcohol, or poor diet. We wanted to find out if coffee alone really does increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, and the research shows this isn't the case."
Dr. Hwang said coffee-drinking behavior is partly due to genetics, with a specific set of genetic variants affecting how much coffee we drink.
"We showed that these genetic variants not only affect coffee consumption in the general population but also in pregnant women," he said.
[...] The researchers emphasize the study only looked at certain adverse pregnancy outcomes, and it is possible caffeine consumption could affect other important aspects of fetal development.
"For that reason, we don't recommend a high intake during pregnancy, but a low or moderate consumption of coffee," Dr. Moen said.
Journal Reference:
Brito Nunes, Caroline, Huang, Peiyuan, Wang, Geng, et al. Mendelian randomization study of maternal coffee consumption and its influence on birthweight, stillbirth, miscarriage, gestational age and pre-term birth [open], International Journal of Epidemiology, 2022. (DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyac121)
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"In this large, observational study, ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause," said study author Professor Peter Kistler of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia. "The results suggest that mild to moderate intake of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle."
There is little information on the impact of different coffee preparations on heart health and survival. This study examined the associations between types of coffee and incident arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease and death using data from the UK Biobank, which recruited adults between 40 and 69 years of age. Cardiovascular disease was comprised of coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure and ischaemic stroke.
[...] A total of 27,809 (6.2%) participants died during follow up. All types of coffee were linked with a reduction in death from any cause. The greatest risk reduction seen with two to three cups per day, which compared to no coffee drinking was associated with a 14%, 27% and 11% lower likelihood of death for decaffeinated, ground, and instant preparations, respectively.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Friday July 08 2022, @11:31PM (2 children)
This is why we can't have nice things. The study at best suggests that some coffee consumption does not cause "certain adverse pregnancy outcomes".
Also, if you squint you'll notice that they didn't even look at coffee consumption. They looked at genes associated with coffee consumption, and then associated that with "certain adverse pregnancy outcomes". Forget correlation vs causation, why worry about an unknown confounding variable when you can add that variable yourself?
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(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:26AM
Well, we took down Big Tobacco, Big Oil is on the ropes, ready to be knocked out. Should we go after Big Coffee next?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @03:57AM
They did explain why they looked at the genes, because you can't set up a controlled experiment with pregnant women and have them drink different controlled amounts of coffee.
(Score: 5, Touché) by FatPhil on Saturday July 09 2022, @09:59AM
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