Study links coffee to weak bones in older women

A FRESH black mark has been placed against coffee, this time linking caffeine with weak bones in older women, writes Celia Hall.

A study of nearly 1,000 post-menopausal, upper middle-class white women in southern California found that a lifetime of drinking two cups of coffee a day increased the level of osteoporosis.

But there was some good news as well. Coffee-drinking women who also drank a glass of milk a day throughout their lives could offset the deleterious effects of their coffee drinking habit.

The Rancho Bernardo Study led by Dr Elizabeth Barrett-Connor of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego, found that bone mineral density at the hip and lower spine was significantly less in the coffee drinkers.

In a report in yesterday's Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers estimate that at least one glass of milk a day needs to be drunk - in addition - to compensate for the two cups of coffee.