Association of alcohol types, coffee and tea intake with mortality

A study examined how alcohol intake from wine and non-wine alcoholic beverages (non-wine) in g/d, as well as cups of coffee and tea are associated with all-cause, cancer, non-cancer and CVD mortality.
Consumption was assessed in 354 386 participants of the UK Biobank cohort who drank alcohol at least occasionally and survived at least 2 years after baseline with 20 201 deaths occurring over 4·2 million person-years. Hazard ratios (HR) for mortality were assessed.
A significant U-shaped association was detected between wine consumption and all-cause, non-cancer and CVD mortality. Wine consumption with lowest risk of death (nadir) ranged from 19 to 23 g alcohol/day in all participants and both sexes separately. In contrast, non-wine intake was significantly and positively associated in a dose-dependent manner with all mortality types studied except for CVD in females and with the nadir between 0 and 12 g alcohol/d.
In all participants, the nadir for all-cause mortality was 2 cups coffee/d with non-coffee drinkers showing a slightly increased risk of death. Tea consumption was significantly and negatively associated with all mortality types in both sexes.
Taken together, light to moderate consumption of wine but not other alcoholic beverages is associated with decreased all-cause and non-cancer mortality. A minor negative association of high coffee consumption with mortality cannot be excluded whereas tea intake is associated with a consistently decreased risk of all mortality types studied, the study authors say.
Source: Schaefer SM, Kaiser A, Behrendt I, Eichner G, Fasshauer M. Association of alcohol types, coffee and tea intake with mortality: prospective cohort study of UK Biobank participants. Br J Nutr. 2022 Feb 3:1-11.