By Cleveland Clinic News Service
Most of us can’t get the day going without our morning coffee.
But have you ever considered if your java habit could be good or bad for your bones?
A recent study looked at coffee and its relationship to bone health.
The study, which looked at data on 564 people, found people who habitually drank coffee had higher bone mass density than non-coffee drinkers.
“Three metabolites, in particular, were associated with an increase in bone density in the population, and also, a decrease in the risk of fracture,” said Chad Deal, M.D., of Cleveland Clinic, who did not take part in the study.
Dr. Deal said the relationship between coffee and bone health has been studied before, and the results have been conflicting.
Previous research has shown that the more caffeine a person drinks, the more calcium is excreted from the body. And since the main mineral component in bone is calcium, he said this could potentially create a calcium imbalance and inhibit bone formation.
Dr. Deal suggests heavy coffee drinkers, who have low bone mass, have testing performed to check calcium excretion levels.
The bottom line is, if you’re a coffee drinker, you shouldn’t be worried about its impact on your bone health.
“For all those folks who drink lots of coffee and are concerned about the health effects of coffee, this is good news,” he said. “It appears to show that coffee is, in general, probably good for bone health.”
Dr. Deal said a potential benefit from this research, comes from the identification of specific metabolites in coffee that are good for bone health. He said this opens the door for more possibilities when it comes to creating new drugs to help protect bone health in the future.
Complete results of the study can be found in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
SOURCE: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgz210/5637088