Coffee May Help Protect Your Muscles As You Age, Study Suggests
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Photo Illustration by Tara Anand for Verywell Health; Getty Images
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Key TakeawaysA new study has found that drinking coffee may help you maintain muscle mass as you age.However, experts stressed that we don’t have evidence suggesting coffee definitely improves muscle mass—only that there’s an association between coffee consumption and higher muscle mass.Experts said maintaining healthy muscle mass is important because it reduces the likelihood of falls in older adults.
New research has found that drinking coffee may help you avoid losing muscle mass as you age.The study, published in Frontiers in Nutrition, raises questions about what protective benefits coffee may provide later in life. Specifically, the new report suggests that drinking coffee may help prevent sarcopenia, a musculoskeletal disease that compromises strength, muscle mass, and performance as you age.“In this observational study, there was a positive association between consumption of coffee and skeletal muscle mass,” Luke Kim, MD, MEd, a geriatrician at Cleveland Clinic, told Verywell. However, experts said it’s important to note that this association didn’t hold for everyone included in the study: The relationship between coffee consumption and higher muscle mass “disappeared” in people with a higher body mass index (BMI), Kim said.We also don’t know why coffee consumption may be associated with higher muscle mass, Heidi Skolnik, MS, CDN, FACSM, a sports nutritionist and exercise physiologist at the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at the Hospital for Special Surgery, told Verywell. But we do know that maintaining healthy muscle mass is vital for your overall health. “Muscle mass is the amount of muscle in our bodies, as measured by its total weight and volume,” Skolnik said.
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How Coffee May Protect the MusclesFor the study, researchers relied on data from over 8,300 participants collected from 2011 to 2018. The average age of the participants was about 40, and slightly over half were female.The data came from the National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES), a database run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that has been collecting information about Americans’ health since the 1960s.The study authors assessed participants’ muscle mass by evaluating bone density scans, and they assessed participants’ coffee intake by having them fill out a questionnaire on how much coffee they had consumed within the past 24 hours. These surveys were conducted twice during the study.“The results showed approximately a 10 to 15% higher appendicular muscle mass in individuals who had higher consumption of coffee, caffeinated coffee, and caffeine,” Skolnik said. “According to this new study, coffee intake is positively associated with skeletal muscle mass in individuals with a BMI less than 30.”Importantly, the study did not prove that coffee causes higher muscle mass in older individuals—it only showed an association between coffee intake and higher muscle mass.Theories Linking Coffee to Muscle HealthExperts said we don’t know why this relationship exists. “The study does not delineate ‘reasons’ why coffee might be associated with improved or higher levels of muscle mass,” Dana Hunnes, PhD, MPH, RD, clinical inpatient dietitian at UCLA Health, told Verywell. “[It] only sheds light on the association between caffeine [or] coffee intake and higher muscle mass, so it’s hard to state ‘why’ that is.”However, there are theories about why coffee may lead to more muscle mass. “It is known that coffee contains multiple anti-inflammatory compounds in it and it is known that inflammation is associated with decreased muscle mass,” Hunnes said. “So it’s possible that drinking coffee lowers inflammation in the body, which lowers the catabolic pathways in the body,” she added, explaining that catabolism occurs when the body “eats its own muscle.”Other mechanistic actions behind the association between coffee consumption and improved muscle mass have been proposed, Skolnik added. “Coffee and caffeine may help maintain autophagy, a process that helps ‘recycle’ aging cells, [or coffee may] increase the number and function of myosatellite cells, [which] are sort of the precursor to muscle cells.”The new research didn’t focus on young people; therefore, it’s difficult to say whether coffee may benefit their musculoskeletal systems. “That does not mean younger people would not see muscle benefits, but most young people do not have sarcopenia,” Skolnik said. “Still, this study looked at adults.”Experts said it’s unclear whether other forms of caffeine—outside of coffee—may also influence muscle mass—and, if they do provide benefits, to what extent. “I would not be ready to make that leap since there are many benefits associated with coffee and its caffeine that are not at all associated with coffee in general,” Hunnes said. “While this study found associations with caffeine on its own, it’s not clear to me that caffeine just on its own offers the same benefits if it’s not encapsulated within a coffee beverage.”Whether decaf coffee may be protective is also unclear: “It is possible that decaf coffee could offer some benefit since it still contains most of the same coffee compounds,” Hunnes explained. “With that being said, this study did not seem to find any association.”
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Is Coffee the Antidote to Sarcopenia?Though the new study offers insights into how coffee may benefit our muscles as we age, many unknowns remain about the relationship between coffee consumption and muscular health.We definitely can’t say that coffee, on its own, can prevent sarcopenia. “Staying physically active [and eating] a healthy diet are [also] needed to lower the risk of sarcopenia,” Hunnes said.It’s also unclear how much coffee you need to drink to see the potential protective benefits. “This study seemed to indicate that any caffeinated coffee intake offered benefits over zero coffee intake, with more benefit with more coffee,” Hunnes explained.As to whether you would have to drink coffee for years to see the benefits, Hunnes said the answer is “likely yes. However, it’s probably never too late to start.” (It’s worth noting, though, that you can drink too much coffee: “The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] recommends no more than 400 milligrams of [caffeine] a day for healthy adults, [and] that’s roughly four cups of coffee,” Hunnes said.)Experts said the study was limited in a couple of crucial ways. Namely, coffee consumption was recorded through a survey—which required participants to recall how much coffee they had consumed—which is subject to recall bias. Recall bias occurs when people don’t accurately remember the details of an experience, such as exactly how much coffee they had over a given period, and it can affect the results of a study.“Recall is notorious for having memory issues and also for just being short-term,” Hunnes said. “[And] nutrition studies are hard to conduct for long periods and achieve accurate and objective data.”While the verdict is still out on exactly how coffee may affect muscle mass, it’s important to prioritize exercise and a healthy diet as you age since these are known to help protect your musculoskeletal system, experts said. “It’s important to maintain muscle mass with age because muscle allows us to maintain balance, stay mobile and active, [and] it helps us digest and absorb our food,” Hunnes explained.Without healthy muscle mass, “we weaken and are less able and capable of participating in the activities of daily living.” Furthermore, lower muscle mass can affect your balance and make you more likely to fall. “Falls are a major cause of morbidity and even, at times, mortality in older adults,” Hunnes said.The bottom line is that more research is needed to clarify how coffee affects our muscles before we can make any certain claims, experts said. “Although this study is very interesting, and we may find that coffee can, indeed, contribute to maintaining healthy muscle, I do not think it is ‘the cure’ for sarcopenia,” Skolnik said. “If you like your java, keep on sipping—just don’t abandon the gym quite yet.”
What This Means For YouAccording to a new study, drinking coffee may lead to higher muscle mass as you age. Maintaining healthy muscle mass may decrease your chances of sustaining injuries from falls as you grow older and may keep you mobile for longer. However, experts said that though coffee may impact muscle mass, it’s crucial to maintain a healthy diet and exercise routine to protect your musculoskeletal system.
Read the original article on Verywell Health.
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