Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1994 TAG: 9401260141
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The study, conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Barrett-Connor and colleagues at the University of California at San Diego, showed that in women who do not drink milk, a lifetime habit of drinking as few as two cups a day of coffee containing caffeine results in a significant decline in bone density as they get older.
Such a decline, the hallmark of osteoporosis, which is epidemic among older women, can place them at risk of suffering debilitating and sometimes life-threatening fractures. Previous studies involving many thousands of women have linked coffee drinking to an increased risk of hip fractures.
The new finding, published in Tuesday's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, also strongly suggests that increasing calcium intake through supplements in middle age or beyond is not adequate to offset the bone loss induced by a lifetime of coffee drinking.
Rather, it appears that the effects of coffee drinking on bone must be countered by appropriate calcium intake throughout life.
Because relatively few women in the study consumed only decaffeinated coffee, the researchers were unable to say whether the bone effects they observed were a result of coffee itself or the caffeine in coffee.
Most of the participants who consumed decaffeinated coffee had been or were currently also regular drinkers of coffee containing caffeine.
The researchers emphasized that their finding did not mean that a single glass of milk each day was sufficient to protect one's bones.
Nor does the study provide guidance as to how much milk might be needed to counter the bone loss caused by coffee intake well above two cups a day.
Eight ounces of milk supplies only about one-third of the daily recommended intake of calcium for adults.
In general, the researchers found that the more coffee women drank, the less milk they consumed.
The study was done by asking the participants to recall their coffee- and milk-drinking habits throughout their adult lives.
No assessment was made of other caffeine-containing beverages, such as tea or soft drinks, that the women might have consumed; nor did the study consider other dietary sources of calcium or the milk they might have added to their coffee.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.