Coffee Drinking May Reduce Suicide Risk

Those late-night runs to Coffee Connection may actually lessen the risk of suicide for women, a new study says. But Harvard students are skeptical of the findings.

The study by a group of Harvard professors, published this week in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine, says that women between the ages of 34 and 59 who drink two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to commit suicide than those who do not.

Dr. Ichiro Kawachi, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health, said the study can provide reassurance to women who have heard so much "bad news" about drinking coffee.

The study, which focused on a group of 86,626 nurses for a period of ten years, found 56 cases of suicide among the coffee-drinkers.

The study, conducted from 1980 to 1990, found 11 suicides among women who drank two to three cups of coffee a day compared to 21 suicides by those who did not drink coffee.

There were 10 suicides among women who consumed more than four cups per day.

The study focused on women who were not suffering from coronary heart disease, stroke or cancer.

Student Reaction

But Harvard students say they are skeptical of the study results, speculating that the findings may just be by chance.

"I think it seems like a...random correlation," says Patricia A. Hsu '98. "I don't think it means anything."

"It seems coincidental," says Alice H. DuBois '99. "If you had some kind of an ulcer or stomach disease and you can't have caffeine, it might be the disease that bums you out."

Others say they believe suicide cannot be related to caffeine intake.

"Suicide has a lot more to do with emotional problems than physical health," Yen says.

Students who do not drink coffee say the findings will not alter their coffee-drinking habits.

"I think if I've made it this far, it's probably okay to forgo a cup of coffee," says Meg F. Gibson '96. "I thought [the study] was kind of ridiculous."

"I don't think I need that much coffee in my daily life," says Alison J. Huang '96

Kawachi says the results of the experiment are not definite enough to encourage drastic coffee consumption.

"It's too early to recommend caffeine as an anti-depressant," he says.

"One thing that's commonly said is that we don't know whether this may be due to some unknown factor," he says.

Students generally expressed concern that coffee is related to heart disease and say it is not worth drinking coffee in hopes of lowering the risk of suicide.

"I think it's one study and the side effects and disadvantages of having so much caffeine outweigh the [advantages]," says Lucy Yen '99.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found last month that coffee has no effect on heart disease. But they warned that coffee drinkers face increased risks for osteoporosis and fractures.

Kawachi says heavy coffee drinkers also tend to drink alcohol to excess and be more stressed. But he argues that these people would be more prone to suicide, not less, as the study indicates.

Kawachi attributes the results to the energizing ability of caffeine.

"Caffeine is a very well-known stimulant, one of the most widely consumed stimulants in the world," he says.

Kawachi says the caffeine in coffee has been shown to energize, relax and elevate the mood of the consumer.

The study was performed as a result of a similar study which had been conducted in California which attempted to determine whether drinking coffee would increase the risk of mortality.

The group showed that there were much lower risks of suicides among the coffee drinkers.

Kawachi says his group of researchers decided to replicate the experiment for a more specific focus on the effects of coffee on suicide.