Drinking Coffee Lowers Risk of Depression in Women?
According to a new study, drinking coffee may lower women’s risk of depression.
Published in the Sept. 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, the study found that women who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day were 15 percent less likely to develop depression over the 10-year study period.
Women who consumed just one cup or less per day did not seem to feel the same benefits, the study showed.
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Women who drank four or more cups of coffee a day amazingly had a 20 percent lower risk.
According to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, coffee accounts for 80 percent of the daily caffeine consumption.
Lead by senior author Dr. Alberto Ascherio, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, study researchers analyzed surveys of 50,739 U.S. women, with an average age of 63, who were enrolled in a long-term study known as the Nurses’ Health Study.
From 1980 to 204, participants filled out questionnaires about their caffeine consumption, including how often they drank coffee, tea and soda.
Participants were followed from 1996 to 2006 to see whether they were diagnosed with depression. For the sake of the study, only if a woman had been given a diagnosis of clinical depression by their physician and starting taking antidepressants were considered depressed. At the beginning of the research, none of the participants had depression.
Some coffee drinkers experience disturbances in their sleep, insomnia or anxiety. It’s possible that women with a history of depression or women who are predisposed to depression are aware of these side effects and reduce their coffee intake accordingly.
However, there is a long history of human studies documenting the mood-lifting effects of caffeine, as it is a stimulant proven to increase alertness and energy.
“Caffeine can make people feel more energized, focused and put them in a better mood in general. This feeling could be reflected in the women’s assessment of their mood symptoms," said Emma Robertson-Blackmore, an assistant professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center as reported by online health news site, My Health News Daily.
Yet Robertson-Blackmore warns study consumers that researchers did not take into account factors known to trigger depressive episodes, including a past history of depression, financial difficulties and experiencing the death of someone else.
This study is the latest in a series of studies that suggest coffee consumption has health benefits. Coffee consumption has been linked to a reduced risk in suicide in the past. Earlier studies include associations between drinking coffee and a reduced risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and stroke.
Researchers warn that that the new study only shows an association between coffee consumption and depression risk and cannot prove that drinking coffee reduces risk of depression in women.
