An estimated 2.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide every day. That’s a lot of coffee, and if you’re part of these statistics, a recent study has suggested that your coffee habits may help ward off frailty later in life.
Drinking Coffee To Combat Frailty
Frailty is a condition of being weak and delicate and is characterized by low grip strength, low energy, slowed walking speed, low physical activity, and/or unintentional weight loss. Frailty is a common issue in the aging world, so a recent Singaporean study set out to examine the potential link between drinking caffeine-containing beverages at midlife and the risk of physical frailty in later life.
For the study, the researchers recruited 12, 583 Chinese people living in Singapore between 1993 and 2017, assessing the amount of caffeine-containing beverages they consumed. During the first round of observations, between 1993 and 1998, the participants had an average age of 53, and then an average age of 73 during the third follow-up observation round between 2014 and 2017.
During the first round of observations, participants answered questionnaires that assessed their caffeine-containing beverage drinking habits, such as coffee, tea, and soft drinks, as well as their consumption of foods such as chocolate in terms of frequency and portion size.
The Risk of Frailty
The third follow-up assessed their levels of frailty, where physical frailty was defined as having at least two of the four components of weight loss of 10% or more between follow-ups, exhaustion, poor balance, slowness, and a weak hand grip.
The participants were asked, amongst other things, about their weight, and a specific question, “Do you feel full of energy?”
They were also examined for handgrip strength and the time taken to complete a balance exercise, to better determine their physical frailty and fall risk.
According to the findings, 68.5% of the participants drank coffee daily, with 52.9 percent of them drinking one cup a day, 42.2% consuming two to three cups per day, and the remaining 4.9 percent drinking four or more cups per day.
In regards to the tea drinkers, they were classified into four categories according to their frequencies:
- never
- at least once a month
- at least once a week
- daily drinkers
Drinking Coffee Can Boost Strength in Old Age
“Coffee and tea are mainstay beverages in many societies around the world. Our studies show that consumption of these caffeinated drinks at midlife may be associated with a reduced likelihood of physical frailty in late life,” – Professor Koh Woon Puay, Healthy Longevity Translational Research Program at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
According to the findings of the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, participants who consumed four cups of coffee daily experienced a reduced likelihood of physical frailty in late life. This was also noticed among consistent drinkers of black and green tea, yet the coffee drinkers had substantially lower odds.
Caffeine is Power
The study concluded that the findings were a result of a higher caffeine intake, which coincides with previous research that suggests that caffeine can affect muscle cell physiology.
Besides caffeine, both coffee and tea contain polyphenols and antioxidants. Both of these compounds can improve health and thus reduce the risk of frailty and falls.
However, the study authors do admit that further studies are still needed to confirm the study’s findings. There also needs to be an investigation into whether the effects on physical frailty are mediated by caffeine or other chemical compounds.
Nonetheless, the moderate consumption of both tea and coffee has been proven to be beneficial for your health. As such, don’t feel shy about enjoying a cup of either occasionally.
Want to know more?
Could your daily espresso turn out to be a functional food that protects your brain from Alzheimer’s disease? According to a recent study, some of the compounds found in espresso may help prevent Alzheimer’s.
References
https://timscoffee.com/blog/statistics/
Chua, K. Y., Li, H., Lim, W. S., & Koh, W. P. (2023). Consumption of Coffee, Tea, and Caffeine at Midlife, and the Risk of Physical Frailty in Late Life. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 24(11), 1655–1662.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2023.06.015
Xue, L. (2011). The Frailty Syndrome: Definition and Natural History. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine, 27(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cger.2010.08.009
Santos, C., Ruiz, R. J., Vettorato, E. D., Nakamura, F. Y., et al. (2011). Effects of chronic caffeine intake and low-intensity exercise on skeletal muscle of Wistar rats. Experimental Physiology, 96(11), 1228-1238. https://doi.org/10.1113/expphysiol.2011.060483
