Coffee and tea intake with long-term risk of irritable bowel syndrome: a large-scale prospective cohort study

Abstract Background To investigate prospective association of coffee and tea intake with incident irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in a long-term cohort. Methods Participants free of IBS, coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and any cancer at baseline from UK Biobank were included. Coffee and tea intake was measured separately via baseline touchscreen questionnaire, with four categories for each intake (0, 0.5–1, 2–3 and ≥4 cups/day). Primary outcome was incident IBS. Cox proportional hazard model was used to estimate associated risk. Results Among 425 387 participants, 83 955(19.7%) and 186 887(43.9%) consumed ≥4 cups/day of coffee and tea at baseline, respectively. During median 12.4-year follow-up, incident IBS was identified in 7736 participants. Compared with no coffee intake, consumption of 0.5–1, 2–3 and ≥4 cups/day was associated with lower IBS risk [hazard ratio (HR)=0.93, 95% CI: 0.87–0.99; 0.91, 0.85–0.97; 0.81, 0.76–0.88; Ptrend