Association of coffee and genetic risk with incident dementia in middle-aged and elderly adults

ABSTRACT

Background:

Prior evidence suggests that coffee might be related to dementia, however, little is known about coffee and dementia in individuals with elevated genetic susceptibility for dementia. Additionally, most previous studies have focused on total coffee instead of examining coffee types separately.

Methods

This study included 203,776 participants (60–73 years old) from the UK Biobank who were initially free of dementia. Polygenic risk scores for dementia were divided into quintile to stratify individuals into low (lowest quintile), intermediate (quintile 2–4), and high (highest quintile) genetic risk categories. Coffee intake was assessed at baseline and included total, instant, ground, and decaffeinated coffee.

Results

During a median follow-up of 11.4 years, 4405 cases of dementia occurred (1856 Alzheimer’s disease [AD], 1105 vascular dementia). Compared to non-coffee drinking, heavy instant coffee drinking (> 6 cups/day) and moderate decaffeinated coffee drinking (1–3 cups/day) were associated with a higher risk of dementia (hazard ratio [HR] 1.19–1.34) and AD (HR 1.41–1.51), while moderate ground coffee drinking was associated with a lower risk of dementia (HR, 0.78; P = 0.001) and vascular dementia (HR, 0.58; P < 0.001). Among participants at high genetic risk, heavy coffee drinking was associated with a 95% (HR; 1.95, 95% CI, 1.21–3.16) higher risk of AD than non-coffee drinking. We found an interaction between coffee and genetic risk in relation to AD (P = 0.038).

Conclusion

The association of dementia and coffee varied by coffee types. Heavy coffee consumption was associated with a higher risk of AD in individuals with high genetic risk for dementia.

KEYWORDS:

• Coffee intake
• coffee type
• genetic risk
• dementia
• prospective study
• Alzheimer's disease
• vascular dementia
• UK Biobank

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants of the UK biobank. This research has been conducted using the UK biobank Resource under the project number of 45676.

Contributors

YW conceived the idea. YW and YZ designed the study. YW, YZ and HY led the analysis with support from SL and ZC. YW, YZ, HY, TY and WL drafted and finalized the paper. All authors contributed to the analysis, intellectual content, critical revisions to the drafts of the paper and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability

The data are available on application to the UK Biobank (www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/).

Ethical approval

Each participating study obtained informed consent from the study participants and approval from its institutional review board.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant number 91746205].

Notes on contributors

Yuan Zhang

Yuan Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University. Her work emphasizes the association of genetic and exposure factors with chronic diseases.

Hongxi Yang

Hongxi Yang is a Ph.D. in the School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University. His research interests include genome-wide association analysis and Mendelian Randomization (MR) study.

Shu Li

Shu Li is a Ph.D. in the School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University. Her work emphasizes the comorbidities of cardiovascular metabolic disease.

Zhi Cao

Zhi Cao is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Public Health, Zhejiang University. Her current areas of research interest include cancer, cognitive disorder, and dementia.

Wei-Dong Li

Wei-Dong Li is a professor in the Department of Genetics, Tianjin Medical University. His current areas of research interest include epigenetics, genetic epidemiology, and Alzheimer's disease.

Tao Yan

Tao Yan is a professor in the Department of Neurology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital & Tianjin Neurological Institute. His research interests include neurorestorative therapy, brain-heart interaction, and brain injury.

Yaogang Wang

Yaogang Wang is a professor in the School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University. His current areas of research interest include the data-driven panoramic association analysis, intelligence-aided prevention and decision management for multiple chronic diseases, comorbidities of chronic diseases, and health care management. Email: [email protected].