In an analysis of 16 studies involving over 1 million men, scientists found that coffee was effective against prostate cancer. The results suggest that there is a connection betweenincreased coffee consumptionand reduced risk of cancer. Furthermore, such research could lay the foundation for future studies.
The research team claims that coffee consumption may have a protective effect against some types of cancer. This is significant because coffee is very popular all over the world. If even a small protective benefit can be demonstrated, it would have a major impact on human health. However, recent studies have found a link between coffee consumption and reduced cancer risk, including in Sweden, the US, the UK and Japan. The researchers wanted to see if they could identify general trends across individual studies. They focused on cohort studies. Participants were followed up to determine who developed prostate cancer and who did not. The nested case-control studies included only individuals in the original cohort. This reduced selection bias. Without this, there could be a risk, for example, of selecting participants who have not drunk coffee because they belong to a gym and are therefore fitter and therefore less likely to develop prostate cancer.
After analyzing data across studies, researchers found that the highest category of coffee consumption was associated with a 9% reduction in cancer risk compared to the lowest category. Additionally, each individual cup of coffee was associated with a 1% risk reduction. Specifically, the researchers found that localized tumor growth that has not spread to another part of a person's body was 7% less likely to occur in the highest category of coffee consumption. For advanced prostate cancer, the highest category of coffee consumption was associated with a 12% reduction in risk compared to the lowest. For fatal prostate cancer, the highest category was associated with a 16% reduction in risk compared to the lowest.In this studyHowever, it has not been determined what could be responsible for this connection. However, the researchers considered a number of biological mechanisms.
