Associations of coffee drinking with systemic immune and inflammatory markers

Background: Coffee drinking has been inversely associated with mortality as well as cancers of the endometrium, colon, skin, prostate, and liver. Improved insulin sensitivity and reduced inflammation are among the hypothesized mechanisms by which coffee drinking may affect cancer risk; however, associations between coffee drinking and systemic levels of immune and inflammatory markers have not been well characterized. Methods: We used Luminex bead-based assays to measure serum levels of 77 immune and inflammatory markers in 1,728 older non-Hispanic Whites. Usual coffee intake was selfreported using a food frequency questionnaire. We used weighted multivariable logistic regression models to examine associations between coffee and dichotomized marker levels. We conducted statistical trend tests by modeling the median value of each coffee category and applied a 20% false discovery rate criterion to P values. Results: Ten of the 77 markers were nominally associated (P trend