More Coffee Linked with Less Depression in Women

On these blog pages I’ve written about the benefits and adverse effects of coffee at least 50 times over the last 6 years.  The general balance is in favor of drinking plenty of coffee, I believe. Now there’s a report that more coffee drinking is linked to fewer diagnoses of depression.   It comes from Harvard Medical School, and is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.   

More than 50,000 Nurses' Health Study participants without depressive symptoms were followed for 10 years.  Caffeine consumption was ascertained by validated questionnaire from the 4^th year onward.  Depression was defined as self-reported physician-diagnosed depression and the use of antidepressants.

During the 10 years there were 2,607 cases of depression among the study population - about 5%.  The risk of developing depression, compared with that for women drinking one cup or less of caffeinated coffee, was 15% lower for those drinking 2-3 cups a day and 20% lower for those drinking 4 cups or more daily.  There was no link seen between other sources of caffeine and depression, or between decaffeinated coffee and depression.

The researchers stressed that this was an observational study that can only suggest that coffee has a protective effect against depression, but cannot prove it.  Of course, doing a prospective controlled study would be extremely difficult.  We may hope that the results of this study lead to research into a possible role for caffeine (or its analogues or derivatives) in depression therapy.