Coffee consumption and risk of incident gout in women: the Nurses' Health Study. The American journal of clinical nutrition 92

Background: Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world and may affect the risk of gout via various mechanisms, but prospective data on the relation between coffee intake and the risk of incident gout are limited. Design: Over a 26-y period, we prospectively examined the relation between coffee intake and risk of incident gout in 89,433 female participants in the Nurses ’ Health Study. We assessed the consump-tion of coffee, decaffeinated coffee, tea, and total caffeine in par-ticipants every 2–4 y through validated questionnaires. We used a supplementary questionnaire to ascertain whether participants met the survey criteria of the American College of Rheumatology for gout. Results: During the 26 y of follow-up, we documented 896 con-firmed incident cases of gout. There was an inverse association between higher coffee intake and the risk of gout. The multivariate relative risks (RRs) for incident gout according to coffee-consumption categories [ie, 0, 1–237, 238–947, and 948 mL coffee/d (237 mL