Association of Coffee Consumption With Overall and Cause-Specific Mortality in a Large US Prospective Cohort Study

Coffee drinking was inversely associated with overall mortality in this large, population-based cohort following adjustment for smoking history and other potential confounders. This association was largely due to inverse associations with several leading causes of death, including heart disease, chronic lower respiratory diseases, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and intentional self-harm. While we did not observe an association between coffee and cancer mortality, it is possible, given an average of 9 years of follow-up time, that the association between coffee drinking and cancers with a long duration between diagnosis and death (i.e., prostate cancer) could not be observed or that coffee reduces mortality risk for some cancers but not others.