ABSTRACT
Background:
Epidemiological studies have shown that coffee consumption is associated with lowered risk of incident VTE. No previous study has explored whether coffee consumption influences the risk of VTE recurrence.
Aims:
To investigate whether the amount of coffee consumption (cups/day) is associated with risk of VTE recurrence in a population-based cohort of incident VTEs.
Methods:
The cohort consisted of 2071 patients with incident VTE recruited from four surveys of the Tromsø Study (enrolment: 1994-2008) and the third survey of the Trøndelag Health Study (enrolment: 2006-08) followed from the date of the index VTE until 2020. Information on coffee consumption (cups/day) and potential confounders were extracted. Cox-regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals for VTE recurrence.
Results:
During a median follow-up of 2.8 years, 310 recurrent VTEs occurred. There was no linear relationship between increasing coffee intake and VTE recurrence. The HR for recurrence was 0.49 (95% CI: 0.30-0.81) for those consuming 1-2 cups of coffee per day and 0.71 (95% CI: 0.44-1.12) for those consuming >6 cups compared with non-coffee consumers. The association between coffee consumption (yes/no) and lowered recurrence risk was more pronounced for provoked index VTE event (HR 0.50, 95% CI: 0.30-0.82) than for unprovoked index VTE (HR: 1.01, 95% CI: 0.53-1.94).
Conclusion:
Coffee consumption was associated with a non-linear lowered risk of VTE recurrence, particularly after provoked VTE. Our findings suggest that coffee can be safely consumed after VTE, potentially with a beneficial effect on recurrence risk.
