Coffee May Reduce the Risk of Chronic Kidney Disease

Drinking coffee may be associated with less risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a new systematic review and meta-analysis.

Regular drinking of coffee may affect metabolism and risk of cardiovascular disease. Although the association between drinking coffee and risk of hypertension or cardiovascular disease has been inconclusive, an inverse association has been found between drinking coffee and metabolic risk factors for CKD such as insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Nevertheless, whether and how coffee affects kidney function has yet to be clarified. 

To evaluate the existing data on this issue via systematic review and meta-analysis, a research team from China developed a protocol to identify comprehensively all cohort studies that compared the risk of CKD in coffee drinkers with the risk in those who do not drink coffee and to combine and analyze the results of these studies. 

The researchers then used this protocol to retrieve relevant data from studies published before June 2021 from 5 electronic databases. They used the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for observational studies to assess study quality, Cochrane Collaboration software to weight each study in reverse relation to its variance, and a generic inverse-variance method to pool effect estimates from all included studies. 

By using these methods, the researchers found that drinking coffee may be associated with less risk of incident CKD. They speculated that the most likely reason for this association is the antioxidative effect of coffee on the development of atherosclerotic injury to the kidney.

“Further detailed studies are needed to confirm the current association and whether this effect of coffee consumption on glomerular filtration rate is beneficial for the kidney,” the researchers concluded. “A prospective study is also needed to examine the causality of this association.”

—Ellen Kurek

Reference:

Li Y, Li W, Lu Y, Zhang J. Coffee consumption is associated with a decreased risk of incident chronic kidney disease: a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine (Baltimore). 2021;100(37):e27149. https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000027149