Reasons for changing caffeinated coffee consumption: the Rancho Bernardo Study

To determine patterns of lifetime caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee use, focusing on frequency and determinants for curtailing caffeinated coffee.

Residents of Rancho Bernardo, a white, upper-middle class Southern California community, were surveyed about their lifetime coffee-drinking behavior; completed questionnaires were received from 69% (n = 2955; mean age was 64 years, age range: 30-105 years). Chi-square tests of differences between proportions in categorical data and t-tests for continuous data were used. Due to the large number of comparisons, statistical significance was defined as p

Respondents began drinking caffeinated coffee around age 20, and decaffeinated coffee around age 50. A few gender-related differences were observed; more women than men curtailed caffeinated coffee (p<0.001), or did so due to sleep problems (p<0.01), while more men curtailed coffee because their spouses stopped drinking it (p<0.001). Most who curtailed caffeinated coffee did so on their own initiative (80% for health concerns); but only 10% of coffee drinkers curtailed caffeinated coffee on advice of a physician. Past combined intake of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffees approached >or=5 cups/day only in those who curtailed caffeinated coffee on advice of a physician or for heart/circulatory problems.

Curtailing of caffeinated coffee in this adult cohort was primarily due to health concerns, but few of those who curtailed caffeinated coffee attribute the change to the advice of a physician.