California agency takes stand against coffee warning

California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), the state agency responsible for enforcing Proposition 65 warnings, made an unprecedented finding in June that will go a long way toward clearing coffee of an unjustified cancer-risk stigma.

The agency proposed a regulation stating that drinking coffee “does not pose a significant cancer risk, despite the presence of chemicals created during the roasting and brewing process that are listed under Proposition 65 as known carcinogens.”

In a statement, the agency wrote that “the proposed regulation is based on extensive scientific evidence that drinking coffee has not been shown to increase the risk of cancer and may reduce the risk of some types of cancer (liver and uterine).”

The OEHHA based its recommendations on a World Health Organization (WHO) report that gave coffee an unequivocal clean bill of health.

WHO’s IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) review of 1,000 observational and experimental studies investigating the association between cancer and coffee found coffee is not the cause, and it could be a good way to ward off some cancers.

The OEHHA regulation followed a March court decision to require coffee retailers to display Prop 65 cancer warnings and for roasters to label coffee with a notice that it contains acrylamide, one of the more than 1,000 chemicals known to the state to cause cancer.

The following month the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine published a peer-reviewed study that found people who drank coffee had a lower risk of dying of any cause–specifically heart disease and cancer–over the course of the study.

The 10-year UK Biobank study of half a million coffee drinkers in Britain “provides further evidence that coffee drinking can be part of a healthy diet and offers reassurance to coffee drinkers.”

Depending on the amount consumed (1 to 8 cups daily), coffee drinkers were 5-10% less likely to die from heart disease, cancer and other causes during the study period than non-coffee drinkers.

Compared to non-coffee drinkers, those who consumed one cup of coffee a day had an 8% lower risk of premature death; this increased to a 16% lower risk for those who drank six cups a day. People who drank up to eight cups of coffee a day were 14% less likely to die prematurely than non-coffee drinkers.

This pattern was seen for all types of coffee, including instant and decaf.

William Murray, president & c.e.o. of the National Coffee Association (NCA) affirms that “coffee has been shown, over and over again, to be a healthy beverage.”

The U.S. government’s own Dietary Guidelines state that coffee can be part of a healthy lifestyle says Murray. “Study after study has provided evidence of the health benefits of drinking coffee, including longevity – coffee drinkers live longer,” he said.

In his presentation of the NCA’s National Coffee Drinking Trends study in March, Michael Edwards of DIG Insights, mentioned a hard-to-pin-down “consumer uneasiness,”

“Twenty-one percent view coffee as unhealthy. They worry about developing a coffee habit and express concerns about chemicals,” he said.

“The negative perceptions of coffee appear to be softening, perhaps because of the overall strength of the coffee category,” he said, but Millennials and GenX coffee drinkers remain wary.

One reason these respondents frequently cite (46%) for not drinking more coffee is caffeine. So “why not decaf?” asks Edwards.

“They should be more carefree,” he said. “I suspect some concerns about what is in the coffee manifests itself as concern about caffeine, but I think it is something more,” he said.

In the study 69% of consumers reported they did not know about coffee’s benefit on reducing illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, or stroke.

Media attention over legal entanglements, frivolous lawsuits, and conflicting regulations reveals a clear disconnect between the scientific evidence and public perception. The coffee industry needs to reinforce that connection.