Abstract

We examined the association of coffee drinking with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in a pooled analysis of two Korean prospective cohort studies: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study. We included 192,222 participants, and a total of 6057 deaths were documented. Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and the HRs were combined using a random-effects model. Coffee drinking was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality [HR (95% CI) = 0.84 (0.77-0.92), for ≥3 cups/day of coffee drinking versus non-drinkers; p for trend = 0.004]. We observed the potential benefit of coffee drinking for mortality due to cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and diabetes, but not for cancer mortality. Overall, we found that moderate coffee drinking was associated with a lower risk of death in population-based cohort analysis of Korean adults.