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It’s National Wellness Month, a time for celebrating and sharing all of the ways we keep ourselves happy and healthy. “Wellness,” of course, can mean many different things. The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.
Some may picture green juice and yoga classes when they think about wellness, but this definition makes clear that many things can contribute to wellness – from enjoying time with family and friends to enjoying a balanced diet, with or without yoga mats!
For coffee drinkers, we know that coffee contributes a lot to the “happy” category. Not only do our beloved coffee beverages put smiles on our faces, but they also put a pep in our steps for the final month of summer fun. This month, though, remember that coffee also has so much more to offer when it comes to staying healthy.
Coffee itself boasts myriad unique health benefits, perhaps thanks to the thousands of naturally-occurring antioxidants and polyphenols in every cup. Drinking coffee is associated with a reduced risk of a wide range of chronic diseases and even a reduced risk of multiple cancers.
In fact, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) recommends drinking coffee “regularly,” and the American Cancer Society (ACS) has concluded that coffee reduces the risk of multiple cancers including liver cancer, endometrial cancer, cancers of the mouth, pharynx and larynx, as well as basal cell skin cancer and melanoma.
Overall, coffee drinkers live longer, happier, healthier lives. Multiple prospective studies encompassing hundreds of thousands of people – for example, these studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Circulation – have found that drinking coffee is associated with increased longevity. Another study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that compared with non-coffee drinkers, participants with the highest level of coffee consumption had a statistically significant lower all-cause mortality.
Coffee can also help achieve shorter-term health goals. Coffee consumption is associated with maintaining a healthy body weight and reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, another leading cause of ill health for Americans. A study published in The Journal of Nutrition in 2020 found that higher coffee consumption (both caffeinated and decaffeinated) was associated with “significantly lower total body fat percentage and trunk body fat” in women.
Wellness includes health from head to toe – and coffee delivers. A literature review conducted by NCA’s science advisor in 2020 found that drinking coffee is associated with up to ⅓ reduced risk of depression. Some studies even suggest that coffee has the potential to help alleviate the symptoms of neurocognitive disorders like ADHD.
It seems like new evidence about coffee’s unique health impacts emerges all the time. One recently-published study conducted in Portugal found that drinking coffee increased activity in parts of the brain involved in short-term memory, attention, and focus. (Note that ingesting caffeine on its own did not have the same effect). New findings conducted by researchers at the University of Verona showed that enjoying espresso helps to destroy rogue tau proteins that gather in the brain and kill neurons, a process that is believed to be involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease- researchers say these results pave the way for more research into treatment and prevention.
To put it simply: your favorite cup of coffee is a great way to support and celebrate wellness this month and every month.
This year, America celebrated its 247th birthday, but did you know that coffee has been one of America’s favorite beverages for even longer? In fact, there is evidence that coffee came to the colonies as early as the days when Captain John Smith and others helped to found Jamestown.
In 1670, Dorothy Jones became the first person licensed to trade coffee in the colonies, and later, drinking coffee came to be seen as a patriotic act. Choosing coffee over tea (and dumping tea into the Boston Harbor) was associated with some of America’s Founding Fathers: George Washington not only imported beans from Yemen, but even attempted to grow coffee (not so successfully) at Mount Vernon.
From those early days, coffee has cemented itself as a staple in American culture. Today, two-thirds of Americans enjoy coffee each day (per our National Coffee Data Trends report), drinking an estimated 491 million cups of coffee daily.
Among American coffee aficionados, we can find some mega-stars to add to our list of American coffee icons.
Famous or otherwise, coffee drinkers may be interested to know that evidence shows coffee is associated with many unique health benefits. For example, a comprehensive review published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that “consumption of 3 to 5 standard cups of coffee daily has been consistently associated with a reduced risk of several chronic diseases.”
From the earliest coffee drinkers in colonial Jamestown to today’s millions of coffee drinkers and coffee businesses, people have made coffee part of the fabric of America for centuries. And we’re proud to say that it will undoubtedly be part of our culture for generations to come.
We think that’s something to celebrate.
Regular readers here know that drinking coffee is associated with a wide array of health benefits and that the body of robust, independent scientific evidence built up over recent decades continues to grow stronger with each passing year.
In honor of National Cancer Survivor Month, it’s particularly fitting that we take a deeper look at the research associating coffee with a reduced risk of multiple cancers, as well as with improved health and longevity for cancer survivors.
Among the many major leading health authorities and independent organizations that have highlighted coffee’s unique health benefits is the World Health Organization (WHO). After a thorough review of existing evidence in 2015, WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) confirmed that drinking coffee is associated with a reduced risk of cancers of the liver and uterine endometrium.
In 2020, the American Cancer Society updated its guidelines for diet and physical activity for cancer prevention, concluding that drinking coffee likely reduces the risk of multiple cancers including liver cancer, endometrial cancer, cancers of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx, as well as basal cell skin cancer and melanoma.
Meanwhile, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) has also confirmed coffee’s association with reduced risk of endometrial and liver cancers. Decaf drinker? You’ll be pleased to hear that AICR says most human studies show a similar reduction in cancer risk when looking at regular and decaf coffee. These are just some of the reasons why IACR recommends coffee as something to “eat regularly.”
These sentiments were echoed by the World Cancer Research Fund which found “strong evidence” that coffee reduces the risk of liver and womb cancers as well as evidence of reduced risk of mouth, pharynx and larynx, and skin cancers. In fact, coffee is the only antioxidant food shown to have a protective effect against melanoma.
The benefits of drinking coffee don’t stop at reducing the risk of developing cancer – several studies have discovered a link between coffee consumption and improved outcomes after a cancer diagnosis. Research has found that coffee consumption is even associated with higher rates of survival in breast cancer survivors and slower rates of progression and death in patients with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer.
Seeing all this evidence of coffee’s unique health benefits, it may be surprising that researchers still don’t know exactly why we’re seeing these effects.
Many attribute it to the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of the approximately 1,000 naturally occurring compounds in coffee beans and hundreds more that develop during the roasting process.
Coffee researchers have identified the need for more research into disease prevention and even the potential for clinical benefits of coffee for the treatment of cancer and other inflammatory diseases.
There are plenty of motivations for drinking coffee: the great taste, the mood boost, the great taste, the cognitive benefits, and of course, the great taste (see what we did there?). But it can’t hurt to know that evidence supports adding coffee’s anti-inflammatory properties and health benefits to the long list of reasons to pour another cup.
The COVID-19 pandemic turned everything on its head, from how people understood their health, to work schedules, travel ability, and more.
One routine that has stayed constant, however, was America’s love for coffee. COVID may have changed where and how Americans drink coffee, but never how much. The latest edition of the National Coffee Data Trends (NCDT) report, released last month and based on surveys conducted in January 2023, illustrates coffee’s continued recovery, renewed growth, and unique staying power as COVID-19 has moved out of its most acute phases.
Unsurprisingly, due to quarantines and shifts to work from home in many industries, the pandemic resulted in a massive increase in drinking coffee at home and a similarly significant decrease in drinking coffee away from home.
Between January and July 2020, coffee consumption outside of the home fell by almost 20%. While past-day coffee drinking away from home remains below pre-pandemic levels, it has rebounded almost 13% since then, showing a clear path toward recovery.
Now that COVID restrictions have eased, coffee drinkers are returning to their pre-pandemic routines. 91% of past-week coffee drinkers now buy coffee away from home at least once per week.
And, as Americans are getting back to work in offices, coffee is getting back to work too. In the most recent polling, 32% of Americans reported having an in-office coffee station, up 6% since mid-pandemic (January 2021).
Coffee was not completely immune from lasting pandemic impacts, of course. Just like many restaurants continue to use QR-code menus, and office buildings keep refilling hand sanitizer dispensers, some new coffee habits appear to be here to stay.
The Spring 2021 NCDT report (mid-pandemic), found that 30% of Americans had discovered new coffees they could enjoy at home, and 23% had purchased a new coffee machine for their household. For some coffee drinkers, trying new things meant doing less work at home and leaning into convenience: between January 2020 and January 2021, drive-through usage among coffee drinkers skyrocketed by nearly 30%.
App usage also jumped significantly during the beginning of the pandemic. From January to July 2020, app usage among past-week coffee drinkers buying coffee outside the home jumped by more than 60%.
The appeal of options like drive-through, apps, and delivery seems to have staying power. App usage (29% of past-week coffee drinkers) has declined somewhat from its peak in July 2020 (39%) but remains above the 24% observed in January 2020.
Similarly, drive-through use (currently, 59% of past-day coffee drinkers who bought their coffee outside the home) has declined from pandemic peaks (62%) but remains well above the pre-pandemic rate of 48%.
In the face of the unprecedented challenges brought on by COVID-19, coffee has proven its remarkable resilience. The coffee experience has transformed — as have many aspects of our daily lives — but coffee seems to have weathered the pressure of the pandemic and come out maintaining its position as America’s favorite beverage.
Learn more about the NCA’s National Coffee Data Trends.
