DALLAS – Women who enjoy a daily dose of coffee may like this perk: It might lower their risk of stroke. Women in a Swedish study who drank at least a cup of coffee every day had a 22 to 25 percent lower risk of stroke, compared to those who drank less coffee or none at all.
"Coffee drinkers should rejoice," said Dr. Sharonne N. Hayes, a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "Coffee is often made out to be potentially bad for your heart. There really hasn't been any study that convincingly said coffee is bad." "If you are drinking coffee now, you may be doing some good and you are likely not doing harm," she added.
But Hayes and other doctors say the study shouldn't send non-coffee drinkers running to their local coffee shop. The study doesn't prove that coffee lowers stroke risk, only that coffee drinkers tend to have a lower stroke risk.
"These sorts of epidemiological studies are compelling but they don't prove cause," said Dr. David S. Seres, director of medical nutrition at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. The findings were published online Thursday in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
Scientists have been studying coffee for years, trying to determine its risks and benefits. The Swedish researchers led by Susanna Larsson at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said previous studies on coffee consumption and strokes have had conflicting findings. "There hasn't been a consistent message come out," of coffee studies, said Dr. Cathy Sila, a stroke neurologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. For the observational study, researchers followed 34,670 Swedish women, ages 49 to 83, for about 10 years. The women were asked how much coffee they drank at the start of the study. The researchers checked hospital records to find out how many of the women later had strokes.
There were a total of 1,680 strokes, including 205 in those who drank less than a cup or none.
Researchers adjusted for differences between the groups that affect stroke risk, such as smoking, weight, high blood pressure and diabetes, and still saw a lower stroke risk among coffee drinkers. Larsson said the benefit was seen whether the women drank a cup or several daily.
"You don't need to drink so much. One or two cups a day is enough," she said.
Larsson, who in another study found a link between coffee drinking in Finnish men who smoked and decreased stroke risk, said more research needs to be done to figure out why coffee may be cutting stroke risk. It could be reducing inflammation and improving insulin sensitivity, she said, or it could be the antioxidants in coffee.
Larsson and others point out that those who want to reduce their chances of a stroke should focus on the proven ways to lower risk: Don't smoke. Keep blood pressure in check. Maintain a healthy weight.
More people are surviving cancer, in part, because of earlier detection and better treatment, they said.
In 2007, there were about 11.7 million Americans with a history of cancer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Forty years ago, the number of cancers survivors was about 3 million. That increased to 10 million in 2001 and to 11.4 million in 2006.
Healthy eating, less smoking and other preventive steps may also be playing a role in the increase, health officials said.
"There are some cancers that we can't prevent and they are terrible tragedies," said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. "But there are many that are preventable, or if caught early can result in much longer life."
Demographics are a factor in the survivor increase, too. Cancer is most common in people 65 and older, and the nation's elderly population is growing. The CDC said 7 million — 60 percent — of the cancer survivors were 65 or older.
Women diagnosed with breast cancer made up the largest share of cancer survivors, at 22 percent, followed by men with prostate cancer, at 19 percent.
The estimates from the CDC and the National Cancer Institute were based on information from nine U.S. cancer patient registries. The survivor count includes anyone who had a cancer diagnosis, including people who had been successfully treated as well as those still getting treated or who may be dying from the disease. About 65 percent had survived for at least five years, and 40 percent for 10 years or more.
