The Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee surveyed1 10 European Countries to investigate the relationship between people’s health awareness and the latest scientific research on coffee.
Coffee plays a major role in the daily life of Europeans. The three most popular places to drink coffee are:
Europeans care about their diet:
Which European countries described their lifestyle as either ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ healthy?
Coffee and health: can we tell fact from fiction?
More than half of Europeans are confused as to whether coffee is good or bad for their health:
Older respondents displayed very poor knowledge of diseases that could potentially pose the highest statistical risk to them: 56% of those aged 35 and above are not aware of the potential health benefits of coffee relating specifically to cognitive decline, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease risk.
Did you know?
So, can coffee be consumed as part of a healthy diet?
Moderate consumption of coffee at 3-5 cups per day has been associated with a range of desirable physiological effects and fits within a healthy diet and active lifestyle. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are advised by EFSA to consume no more than 200mg of caffeine, per day, from all sources11. This is equivalent to 2 cups of coffee per day.
References
1 4119 respondents across 10 European countries were surveyed by ISIC in November 2015.
2 Huxley R. et al. (2009) Coffee, Decaffeinated Coffee, and Tea Consumption in Relation to Incident Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Arch Intern Med, 169:2053-63.
3 Zhang Y. et al. (2011) Coffee consumption and the incidence of type 2 diabetes in men and women with normal glucose tolerance: The Strong Heart Study. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 21(6):418-23.
4 Santos C. et al. (2010) Caffeine intake and dementia: systematic review and meta-analysis. J Alzheimers Dis, 20(1):187-204.
5 Palacios N. et al. (2012) Caffeine and Risk of Parkinson’s Disease in a Large Cohort of Men and Women. Movement Disorders, 1;27(10):1276-82
6 EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) (2011) Scientific Opinion on the substantiation of health claims related to caffeine and increased fat oxidation leading to a reduction in body fat mass (ID 735, 1484), increased energy expenditure leading to a reduction in body weight (ID 1487), increased alertness
(ID 736, 1101, 1187, 1485, 1491, 2063, 2103) and increased attention (ID 736, 1485, 1491, 2375) pursuant to Article 13(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/20061. EFSA Journal;9(4):2054
7 European Heart Network, ‘European Cardiovascular Disease Statistics 2012’ Available at: http://www.ehnheart.org/cvd-statistics.html
8 Ding M. et al. (2014) Long-term coffee consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease: a systematic review and a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
Circulation. 129(6):643-59
9 Killer S. C. et al. (2014) No Evidence of Dehydration with Moderate Daily Coffee Intake: A Counterbalanced Cross-Over Study in a Free-Living Population.
PLoS ONE, 9(1): e84154.
10 Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (2015) ‘The good things in life: can coffee and caffeine improve sports performance?’ Available at: http://coffeeandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ISIC-Sports-Performance-Report_FINAL.pdf
11 EFSA (2015) Scientific Opinion on the Safety of Caffeine, EFSA Journal, 13(5):4102.