Abstract
Many studies have explored the relationship between coffee—one of the most commonly consumed beverages today—and obesity. Despite inconsistent results, the relationship has not been systematically summarized. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis by compiling data from 12 epidemiologic studies identified from PubMed and Embase through February 2019. The included studies assessed obesity by body mass index (BMI, a measure of overall adiposity) or waist circumference (WC, a measure of central adiposity); analyzed the measure as a continuous outcome or binary outcome. Using random effects model, weighted mean difference (WMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were obtained for continuous outcomes; summary relative risk (RR) and 95% CI for the highest vs. lowest categories of coffee intake were estimated for binary outcome. For BMI, WMD was −0.08 (95% CI −0.14, −0.02); RR was 1.49 (95% CI 0.97, 2.29). For WC, WMD was −0.27 (95% CI −0.51, −0.02) and RR was 1.07 (95% CI 0.84, 1.36). In subgroup analysis by sex, evidence for an inverse association was more evident in men, specifically for continuous outcome, with WMD −0.05 (95% CI −0.09, −0.02) for BMI and −0.21 (95% CI −0.35, −0.08) for WC. Our meta-analysis suggests that higher coffee intake might be modestly associated with reduced adiposity, particularly in men.
Highlights
Having gained significant popularity worldwide in the last few decades, coffee has been a preferred source of caffeine for many people
Circumference; WMD, weighted mean difference. In this meta-analysis of observational epidemiologic studies, higher coffee intake was significantly associated with modestly lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) in men but not in women
These findings were not replicated in the meta-analysis of observational epidemiologic studies that defined overall or central obesity using specific cutoffs of BMI and WC
Summary
Having gained significant popularity worldwide in the last few decades, coffee has been a preferred source of caffeine for many people. Coffee is high in caffeine and other bioactive compounds, such as polyphenol and chlorogenic acid that have been suggested to confer diverse health benefits [1]. Considering that obesity has been established as a major underlying cause for the aforementioned health risks, it is plausible that coffee intake may be associated with reduced risk of obesity. The results are largely inconsistent with results ranging from suggesting anti-obesity benefit [1,16,17] to reporting no effect [8,11] and even indicating increased obesity associated with higher coffee consumption [6,7]
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