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Ongoing Popularity

Can being a creature of habit with your morning routine negatively affect you down the road?

The popularity of caffeinated drinks has been largely prevalent in the diet of the world population, especially of those individuals in the United States. The most common caffeinated beverage is coffee, prompting many scientific studies to be conducted regarding the analysis of habitual coffee consumption and risk of chronic disease. A variety of study types have been performed to determine the prevalence of such diet-related diseases in the population, allowing for recommendations to be made for the general public.

Just like any famous trend that typically gains a cult following, scientists are keen to analyze object of fascination from every angle possible. Studies examining the population, known as epidemiological studies, were conducted in order to accomplish this analysis by observing the relationship between habitual coffee consumption and three different outcomes of clinical interest: cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and death.

Don’t fret- we coffee lovers seem to be in the clear! Following these epidemiological studies, scientists have been able to infer that habitual coffee consumption may have a null (no effect) or even an inverse relationship with these diet-related outcomes.

Specific groups of the populace, called cohorts, were observed over a long time period to determine if they were susceptible to these diseases while partaking in coffee drinking behavior. As it turns out, a study involving individuals of the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) and the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) portrayed that habitual coffee intake has a null association with cardiovascular disease (1). Furthermore, a study indicated that individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus who habitually drank coffee were actually inversely related to further chronic disease risk (2). Finally, an additional study concerning the HPFS and NHS participants determined that there appears to be a significant inverse relationship between the consumption of coffee and mortality across the board (3).

Research Funding Proposal

In order to achieve these substantial findings, organizations and individuals must request money to fund their efforts.

This request often comes in the form of a research funding proposal (RFP), which grants the researchers access to the funds necessary to accomplish their research goals once the proposal is approved.

The following scenario is how an individual could request money from an organization, like North Carolina State University, to examine the coffee/caffeine topic:

Objective: To assess the consumption of caffeine and coffee within a campus environment by using a cohort of college students over the course of an academic semester by submitting food diaries bi-weekly and meeting with a NCSU dietitian monthly.

Specific Aims:

• Conduct controlled interviews with a practicing dietitian to detail consumption habits in a professional environment.
• Observe how a college campus affects the behavior of students concerning caffeine/coffee intake habits.
• Simulate long-term consumption by obtaining food diaries biweekly over the course of the academic semester.

Methods:

• Baseline Questionnaire:
  • At the first interview with a dietitian from the NCSU Nutrition Department, the student participants would be required to complete a questionnaire concerning their caffeine/coffee consumption prior to the beginning of the study to serve as a baseline.
• Food Diaries:
  • During the interim between the meetings with the dietitian, the participants would be required to document their consumption patterns in the form of a food. These food diaries would require them to keep track of the frequency of consumption, serving/portion sizes, and method of preparation.
  • The food diaries are expected to be recorded biweekly for 3 days, which includes at least one day of the weekend.
• Dietitian Interviews:
  • The goal of having the dietitian present is to provide a professional-led setting in which the participants answer questionnaires and recount the food diaries.

Budget: $500 from the NC State’s Office of Undergraduate Research => $100 for each of the meetings.

Timeline:

• June-July: Conduct draft for North Carolina State University Institutional Review Board
• Late August-Early December: Food diary records kept biweekly for 3 days (including one day during the weekend)
• Mid December-Early January: Analyze consumption data of student participants up to this point.
• Mid January: One last interview with NCSU dietitian to determine if the winter break altered consumption habits.
• February: Finalize the organization and analysis of consumption data.

 

Method to the madness: All these components are necessary for researchers and organizations to receive funding for their studies and projects so that they can follow through with their objective of providing the public with information to benefit their lives.

References

1. Esther Lopez-Garcia, Rob M. van Dam, Walter C. Willett, Eric B. Rimm, et al. Coffee Consumption and Coronary Heart Disease in Men and Women. Circulation. 2006;113:2045-2053. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.105.598664
2. S. Bidel, G. Hu, Q. Qiao, P. Jousilahti, R. Antikainen, J. Tuomilehto. Coffee consumption and risk of total and cardiovascular mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetologia, 49 (11) (2006), pp. 2618-2626
3. Esther Lopez-Garcia, PhD; Rob M. van Dam, PhD; Tricia Y. Li, MD; Fernando Rodriguez-Artalejo, MD, PhD; Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD. The Relationship of Coffee Consumption with Mortality. Ann Intern Med. 2008;148(12):904-914. DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-148-12-200806170-00003