The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans released on December 29, 2020 reaffirmed that coffee can be part of a healthy diet. Responding, the National Coffee Association (NCA) said this was “great news for the two-thirds of Americans who drink coffee each day.”
NCA president and c.e.o. Bill Murray said, “Decades of independent scientific evidence show that drinking coffee is associated with significantly reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and multiple cancers. It is only right that the dietary guidelines reaffirm coffee can be part of healthy diets, because indeed coffee drinkers live longer, healthier lives.”
However, although the dietary guidelines include coffee in healthy eating patterns, NCA expressed disappointment that they “miss opportunities to note coffee’s association with specific health benefits.”
In a statement, NCA said the guidelines also refer to sweetened coffees as a source of added sugars to limit, despite the fact that scientific studies do not observe differences in health outcomes depending on how coffee is prepared. “More than half of American coffee drinkers do not use any sweetener in their coffee,” NCA said.
NCA has repeatedly urged the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and other agencies that coffee should be considered separately from other beverages given the preponderance of evidence showing its health benefits, evidence which has further strengthened since the 2015 dietary guidelines.