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Coffee has many potential health benefits, and research into its potential benefits is ongoing.
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Experts are interested in how coffee may impact women, specifically.
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Results from a recent study shared at the Nutrition 2025 conference indicated that drinking coffee may increase women’s chances of not having major chronic diseases and physical or mental limitations as they get older.
Coffee may offer several health benefits, including minimizing the risk of liver problems and diabetes. Experts are interested in exploring coffee’s potential benefits and how it might influence specific groups.
For women, drinking coffee might be a good thing when it comes to aging well. According to recent study results, total caffeine and regular coffee intake increased the chances of experiencing no physical function limitations, memory complaints, mental health impairments, cognitive impairments, or major chronic diseases among women in the Nurses’ Health Study.
The results of the study were shared at Nutrition 2025, a conference held between May 31-June 3, 2025, in Orlando, FL. They suggest that drinking coffee regularly may help with healthy aging.
These findings are yet to appear in a peer-reviewed journal.
The link between coffee and healthy aging for women
Healthy aging is a broad concept, but for this study, participants were described as having healthy aging if they met the following criteria:
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living to a least 70 years old
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not having 11 major chronic diseases
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being free of physical functional limitations
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free of mental health or cognitive impairments
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having no memory complaints.
Researchers used data from the Nurses’ Health Study. This cohort allowed researchers to pull data from a large number of women over a long period. In all, they included 47,513 women.
Researchers examined food frequency questionnaires to look at caffeine intake from decaf and regular tea, cola, and decaf and regular coffee. They determined a baseline exposure based on the average of the 1984 and 1986 food frequency questionnaires.
They examined caffeine consumption in 80 milligram (mg) increments. They looked at coffee in 8-ounce cups a day and cola in 12-ounce glasses a day.
In their analyses, they were able to adjust for factors like participants’ ages, physical activity levels, smoking habits, and alcohol intake. The study had a 30-year follow-up, with researchers looking at questionnaires from 2014 and 2016. In 2016, just over 3,700 women experienced healthy aging based on the study’s criteria.
Most caffeine intake came from coffee, and the median caffeine consumption at baseline was 315 mg daily. Total caffeine intake increased participants’ chances of experiencing healthy aging and its subdomains. When looking at caffeine sources, regular coffee increased participants’ chances of experiencing healthy aging.
Researchers did not find an association between healthy aging or its domains and drinking tea, decaffeinated tea, or decaffeinated coffee. The results also suggested that drinking cola might actually decrease women’s likelihood of healthy aging.
Study author Sara Mahdavi, BSc, HBSc, RD, MSc, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University, and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, in the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Nutritional Sciences, highlighted the following findings of the study to Medical News Today:
“We found that moderate intake of caffeinated coffee during midlife was modestly associated with healthy aging later in life. We defined healthy aging stringently: Not only surviving into older age, but doing so without major chronic disease, cognitive decline, physical disability, or poor mental health. Each additional cup of coffee was linked to about a 2% higher chance of healthy aging, while cola intake was associated with a 20% lower chance. The association appeared to be dose-responsive for coffee, though modest, and was not observed with decaf or tea, possibly due to lower intake and differences in bioactive content.”
What conclusions can we draw from this research?
While this study appears to be encouraging for coffee lovers, it may still be too soon to draw strong conclusions based on its findings.
For one, since the data only included women and the majority of them were white, it would be helpful to see if similar results could be replicated in other groups. It might also be helpful to do further research that considers other age ranges and healthy aging outcomes.
Then, seeing that at least some data relied on participants answering health-related questions, there could be some errors related to this. It is also possible that researchers did not account for confounding factors that could have impacted the overall results.
Additional details about the study are also unclear at this time. For example, based on another published study, details about some coffee additives like sugar and creamer are available for this cohort, and it is unclear how researchers may have addressed this, other coffee additive scenarios, or accounted for factors like coffee type in the current study.
It is also unclear if they accounted for changes in caffeine intake since they focused on baseline caffeine consumption.
Bruce G. Rankin, DO, CPI, FACOFP, president of the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association, who was not involved in the current study, told MNT that:
“Meta-analysis studies could further support the theory that moderate amounts of caffeinated coffee daily promote healthy aging. If the results show they are reproducible, then it would suggest caffeinated coffee provides a clinical health benefit over time to women. We know that caffeinated coffee in moderation is safe for the general population. There are health conditions that require close monitoring of excessive caffeine intake like hypertension.”
‘Coffee is not universally beneficial’
Overall, the study results suggest that drinking coffee in midlife may offer long-term benefits for women. It also indicates the potential damage related to drinking soda.
Sherry Ross, MD, a board-certified OB/GYN and Women’s Health Expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, not involved in the study, said that its “clinical implications […] support the health benefits of moderately consuming caffeinated coffee, [and that] with its antioxidants and other bioactive compounds, [coffee] should be encouraged for healthy aging.”
“Adding caffeinated coffee to your list of healthy lifestyle choices should be encouraged for healthier aging,” Ross suggested. “This study also shows that reducing the amount of sugary soft drinks should be encouraged for healthy aging. The nonalcoholic beverages you consume with aging should be an important part of lifestyle choices made to give you the best chance of living a healthy and long life.”
However, despite the noted benefits of coffee, there should also be some caution. For people taking medication to control chronic conditions, in particular, it is a good idea to speak to a doctor about how caffeine might interact with any medications, or impact any underlying conditions.
Mahdavi offered the following caveat:
“Coffee is not universally beneficial. Caffeine metabolism varies significantly based on both genetics and hormonal factors, such as estrogen, which slows caffeine clearance. Our prior research has shown that women with slower caffeine metabolism (due to genetic variation in the CYP1A2 gene) may not benefit from high intakes, and could be more susceptible to adverse effects. Personalized nutrition — taking into account both sex and genetic differences — will be key in future recommendations.”
View the original article on Medical News Today
