Coffee may help patients with kidney disease live longer: Study

Consuming more caffeine-containing beverages may help reduce the risk of death for people with chronic kidney disease, a study claims.

An inverse relationship between coffee consumption and mortality has been previously reported in the general population, said researchers from Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte in Portugal.

The study, published in the journal Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, involved data from 4,863 American people observed from 1999 to 2010.

The analysis suggests an inverse association between caffeine consumption and all-cause mortality among participants with chronic kidney disease, researchers said.

Compared with people that consumed less caffeine, patients who consumed higher levels of caffeine presented a nearly 25 per cent reduction in the risk of death over a median follow-up of 60 months, they said.

"Our study showed a protective effect of caffeine consumption among patients with chronic kidney disease," said Miguel Bigotte Vieira from Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte.

"The reduction in mortality was present even after considering other important factors such as age, gender, race, smoking, other diseases, and diet," Vieira said.

The possible protective effect of caffeine might be related with effects at vascular level as caffeine is known to promote the release of substances, such as nitric oxide, that improve the function of the vessel, researchers said.

Chronic kidney disease is associated with increased health care costs and a higher risk of death. The prevalence of the disease is expected to continue to increase worldwide, they said.

These results suggest that advising patients with kidney disease to drink more caffeine may reduce their mortality, researchers said.

This would represent a simple, clinically beneficial, and inexpensive option, though this benefit should ideally be confirmed in a randomized clinical trial, they said.