It’s the kind of scientific finding that seems tailor-made for an entire industry to turn into a marketing ploy preying on people’s most vain instincts: a recent study found that coffee drinkers overall have less fat, are more muscular, and, wouldn’t you know it, have some fascinating differences in their sex hormones compared with non-coffee drinkers. Coffee, it seems, according to one study, is some kind of magical elixir that makes you a better person.
In a study published in the European Journal of Nutrition, researchers from the University of Oulu in Finland examined 2,264 people from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966, all of whom were 46 years old. They found that people who reported drinking more coffee tended to have less total and visceral fat and more skeletal muscle, even though their BMI was about the same.
Men seem to get most of the benefit, as drinking more coffee was associated with higher total and bioavailable testosterone, along with higher levels of sex hormone-binding globulin. Overall, these guys had a more favorable glucose-insulin profile. Women, it seems, did not have as many miraculous associations.
Coffee Was Linked to Higher Testosterone and Better Metabolic Health in Men
Also had lower levels of branched–chain amino acids. When these are chronically elevated, they are often associated with insulin resistance and diabetes.
All of this is going to cause influencers to declare coffee is some kind of performance-enhancing drug anyone can pick up at a Starbucks or 7-Eleven. But that’s not what the researchers are saying. The study is just observational, meaning that it found associations. It didn’t prove anything definitively.
Remember: correlation does not equal causation. Just because the researchers found an association that seems to link coffee with being some kind of genetically enhanced super soldier doesn’t actually mean it definitively causes people to lose fat and gain muscle.
There are also tons of variables involved that further research would need to parse through, like genetics and lifestyle choices. Who knows, maybe the way you brew a cup matters? Maybe the region it’s from? Maybe sweetened or unsweetened factors in? There are a lot of variables to consider.
It’s like the study’s lead researcher, Luca Verroest, said in a press release published on the University of Oulu’s website: “What stood out in our findings was a distinct hormonal signature that didn’t disappear even after we took into account BMI and lifestyle factors, with several of these associations differing between men and women.”
Long-term intervention studies are needed here to determine whether coffee actually produces these effects or whether other factors are at play.
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