Latter-day Saint Life

After Studies Find Surprising Benefits of Coffee, Mormons to Play Big Role in New Study on Coffee's Impact

38526.jpg

Last year, the World Health Organization reviewed nearly 1,000 studies and determined that "hot drinks" do, in fact, come with their own health risks. The WHO found that those who drink "extremely hot tea or coffee" have higher rates of esophageal cancer. But this study dealt more with the temperature of the drinks than the impact of the substances within them.

Recently, two studies published by the Annals of Internal Medicine suggest that coffee consumption has been “associated with reduced risk for death.” But, as the Deseret News points out, there are still a lot of questions these studies left unanswered. One study that seeks to better understand the way coffee affects the body will feature Mormons:

[Dr. Richard] Gilroy said that Intermountain Healthcare is currently conducting a study related to this topic that will explore the population within the Utah Intermountain Area. The study will explore whether or not coffee consumption might have an impact on the fatty liver disease, the most common liver disease in the country. The Intermountain study will research one demographic that may not have been researched previously in relation to coffee: religion. Why? The study is being conducted in an area with a high population of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Fifty- to 70-year-old people who are LDS rarely ever drink coffee,” Gilroy said. “But the LDS have a much healthier lifestyle in that they don’t smoke and they don’t drink and there are biases to this, so we’re trying to see whether coffee might be independently predictive.”

Time will tell whether their study reveals additional findings related to coffee consumption or the lack thereof in the lives of LDS Church members.

Lead image from Deseret News
Share
Stay in the loop!
Enter your email to receive updates on our LDS Living content