Long‐term alcohol and caffeine intake and risk of sudden cardiac death in women
Open accessAbstract
Background Alcohol and caffeine intakes may play a role in the development of sudden cardiac death (SCD) because of their effects on cholesterol, blood pressure, heart rate variability, and inflammation.Objective Our objective was to examine the association between long-term alcohol and caffeine intakes and risk of SCD in women.Design We examined 93,676 postmenopausal women who participated in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. Women were enrolled between 1993 and 1998 and were followed until August 2009. Women completed a food-frequency questionnaire at baseline and again at year 3. We modeled exposure to alcohol 3 ways: by using baseline intake only, a cumulative average of baseline and year 3 intake, and the most recent reported intake (a simple time-varying analysis).Results Intake of 5-15 g alcohol/d (about one drink) was associated with a nonsignificantly reduced risk of SCD compared with 0.1-5 g/d of baseline intake (HR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.40, 1.02), of cumulative average intake (HR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.43, 1.11), and of most recent intake (HR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.35, 0.96), with adjustment for age, race, income, smoking, body mass index, physical activity, hormone use, and total energy. No association was found between SCD and total caffeine intake (mg/d) or cups of caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and caffeinated tea.Conclusions Our results suggest that about one drink per day (or 5.1-15 g/d) may be associated with a reduced risk of SCD in this population; however, this association was only statistically significant for a model using the most recent alcohol intake. Total caffeine, regular coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and regular tea intake were not associated with the risk of SCD. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00000611.
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Bertoia et al. (2013) found no association between total caffeine, caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee or caffeinated tea and risk of sudden cardiac death.
“No association between total caffeine, caffeinated (regular) coffee, decaffeinated coffee or caffeinated tea and the risk of SCD was found.”
From Scientific Opinion on the safety of caffeine (2015) · cites this paper as Bertoia et al., 2013
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- Authors
- Bertoia, M. L., Triche, E. W., Michaud, D. S., Baylin, A., Hogan, J. W., Neuhouser, M. L., Freiberg, M. S., Allison, M. A., Safford, M. M., Li, W., Mossavar-Rahmani, Y., Rosal, M. C., & Eaton, C. B.
- Affiliations
- Brown University (US)
- Fred Hutch Cancer Center (US)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- University of Alabama at Birmingham (US)
- University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-06
- Volume
- 97
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1356-1363
- ISSN
- 0002-9165 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3652927
- OpenAlex
- W2123918274
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 3.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship@UMassChan (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (n01wh22110-38-0-0, N01-WH-2-2110)
- U.S. Public Health Service (44221, 32122, 24152, 42107-26, 42129-32, 32118-32119, 32100-2, 32105-6, 32108-9, 32111-13, 32115)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD041020)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pathology and Forensic Medicine › Alcohol Consumption and Health Effects
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Coffee research and impacts
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias
- Keywords
- sudden cardiac death, alcohol consumption, caffeine consumption, coffee consumption, tea consumption, postmenopausal women, cardiovascular risk factors, time-varying exposure, Women's Health Initiative
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Alcohol Drinking, Caffeine, Coffee, Female, Humans, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Risk Factors, Smoking, Socioeconomic Factors, Tea, Body Mass Index, Death, Sudden, Cardiac, Postmenopause
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