Coffee and caffeine intake and risk of endometriosis: a meta-analysis

Francesça Chiaffarino, Francesca Chiaffarino, Francesca Bravi, Sonia Cipriani, Fabio Parazzini, Elena Ricci, Paola Viganò, Carlo La Vecchia
European journal of nutrition · 2014 · vol. 53(7) , pp. 1573–1579 · doi:10.1007/s00394-014-0662-7 · PMID:24481690 · W1975201860
review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 35 in-corpus citations
Full text JSON View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06+body, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

A meta-analysis of eight epidemiological studies found no evidence linking coffee or caffeine consumption to an increased risk of endometriosis.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 · read from full text ⓘ

This meta-analysis evaluated epidemiological evidence published up to January 2013 on whether coffee and/or caffeine intake is associated with the risk of endometriosis, pooling results from six case–control and two cohort studies of 1,407 women with endometriosis. The authors calculated summary relative risks comparing any, high, and low coffee/caffeine intake versus no consumption and found no clear association, with overall estimates around 1.18 for caffeine and 1.13 for coffee, and confidence intervals that included unity. A major limitation noted by the nature of the evidence is that the included observational studies provide limited ability to establish causality and are susceptible to between-study variability and potential bias inherent in such designs. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it meta-analyzes caffeine and coffee intake as potential risk factors for developing endometriosis.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Full text 7,193 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · 5 sections · click to expand

Abstract

Purpose The potential association between endometriosis and coffee/caffeine consumption has been analysed in several epidemiological studies. In order to establish whether caffeine influences the risk of endometriosis, we provide to summarize the evidence from published studies on this issue.

Methods

We performed a meta-analysis of epidemiological studies published up to January 2013. We computed summary relative risks (RR) of endometriosis for any, high and low versus no coffee/caffeine consumption.

Results

We identified a total eight studies, six case–control and two cohort studies, including a total of 1,407 women with endometriosis. The summary RR for any versus non-consumption were 1.26 [95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.95–1.66] for caffeine and 1.13 (95 % CI 0.46–2.76) for coffee consumption; the overall estimate was 1.18 (95 % CI 0.92–1.49). The summary RR were 1.09 (95 % CI 0.84–1.42) and 1.09 (95 % CI 0.89–1.33) for high and low caffeine consumption as compared to no consumption, respectively.

Conclusion

The present meta-analysis provided no evidence for an association between coffee/caffeine consumption and the risk of endometriosis. Coffee/caffeine consumption, as currently used in diet, does not carry a health risk. Similar content being viewed by others

References

Gruppo italiano per lo studio dell’endometriosi (1994) Prevalence and anatomical distribution of endometriosis in women with selected gynaecological conditions: results from a multicentric Italian study. Hum Reprod 9(6):1158–1162 Gentilini D, Perino A, Vigano P, Chiodo I, Cucinella G, Vignali M, Di Blasio AM, Busacca M (2011) Gene expression profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in endometriosis identifies genes altered in non-gynaecologic chronic inflammatory diseases. Hum Reprod 26(11):3109–3117 Vigano P, Parazzini F, Somigliana E, Vercellini P (2004) Endometriosis: epidemiology and aetiological factors. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 18(2):177–200 Ferrini RL, Barrett-Connor E (1996) Caffeine intake and endogenous sex steroid levels in postmenopausal women. The Rancho Bernardo Study. Am J Epidemiol 144(7):642–644 Kotsopoulos J, Eliassen AH, Missmer SA, Hankinson SE, Tworoger SS (2009) Relationship between caffeine intake and plasma sex hormone concentrations in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Cancer 115(12):2765–2774 Wedick NM, Mantzoros CS, Ding EL, Brennan AM, Rosner B, Rimm EB, Hu FB, van Dam RM (2012) The effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee on sex hormone-binding globulin and endogenous sex hormone levels: a randomized controlled trial. Nutr J 11:86 Bravi F, Scotti L, Bosetti C, Gallus S, Negri E, La Vecchia C, Tavani A (2009) Coffee drinking and endometrial cancer risk: a meta analysis of observational studies. Am J Obstet Gynecol 200(2):130–135 Li J, Seibold P, Chang-Claude J, Flesch-Janys D, Liu J, Czene K, Humphreys K, Hall P (2011) Coffee consumption modifies risk of estrogen-receptor negative breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res 13(3):R49 Berube S, Marcoux S, Maheux R (1998) Characteristics related to the prevalence of minimal or mild endometriosis in infertile women. Canadian collaborative group on endometriosis. Epidemiology 9(5):504–510 Buck Louis GM, Hediger ML, Pena JB (2007) Intrauterine exposures and risk of endometriosis. Hum Reprod 22(12):3232–3236 Grodstein F, Goldman MB, Ryan L, Cramer DW (1993) Relation of female infertility to consumption of caffeinated beverages. Am J Epidemiol 137(12):1353–1360 Huang PC, Tsai EM, Li WF, Liao PC, Chung MC, Wang YH, Wang SL (2010) Association between phthalate exposure and glutathione S-transferase M1 polymorphism in adenomyosis, leiomyoma and endometriosis. Hum Reprod 25(4):986–994 Matalliotakis IM, Cakmak H, Fragouli YG, Goumenou AG, Mahutte NG, Arici A (2008) Epidemiological characteristics in women with and without endometriosis in the Yale series. Arch Gynecol Obstet 277(5):389–393 Parazzini F, Chiaffarino F, Surace M, Chatenoud L, Cipriani S, Chiantera V, Benzi G, Fedele L (2004) Selected food intake and risk of endometriosis. Hum Reprod 19(8):1755–1759 Pauwels A, Schepens PJ, D’Hooghe T, Delbeke L, Dhont M, Brouwer A, Weyler J (2001) The risk of endometriosis and exposure to dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls: a case-control study of infertile women. Hum Reprod 16(10):2050–2055 Missmer SA, Hankinson SE, Spiegelman D, Barbieri RL, Marshall LM, Hunter DJ (2004) Incidence of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis by demographic, anthropometric, and lifestyle factors. Am J Epidemiol 160(8):784–796 DerSimonian R, Laird N (1986) Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Control Clin Trials 7(3):177–188 Greenland S (1987) Quantitative methods in the review of epidemiologic literature. Epidemiol Rev 9:1–30 Thornton A, Lee P (2000) Publication bias in meta-analysis: its causes and consequences. J Clin Epidemiol 53(2):207–216 Egger M, Davey Smith G, Schneider M, Minder C (1997) Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. BMJ 315(7109):629–634 Missmer SA, Chavarro JE, Malspeis S, Bertone-Johnson ER, Hornstein MD, Spiegelman D, Barbieri RL, Willett WC, Hankinson SE (2010) A prospective study of dietary fat consumption and endometriosis risk. Hum Reprod 25(6):1528–1535 Salvini S, Parpinel M, Gnagnarella P, Maisonneuve P, Turrini A (1998) Banca dati di composizione degli alimenti per studi epidemiologici in Italia. Istituto Europeo di Oncologia: Milan, Italy Boffetta P, McLaughlin JK, La Vecchia C, Tarone RE, Lipworth L, Blot WJ (2008) False-positive results in cancer epidemiology: a plea for epistemological modesty. J Natl Cancer Inst 100(14):988–995 Ohta A, Sitkovsky M (2011) Methylxanthines, inflammation, and cancer: fundamental mechanisms. Handb Exp Pharmacol 200:469–481 Beaudoin MS, Graham TE (2011) Methylxanthines and human health: epidemiological and experimental evidence. Handb Exp Pharmacol 200:509–548 Carrillo JA, Benitez J (2000) Clinically significant pharmacokinetic interactions between dietary caffeine and medications. Clin Pharmacokinet 39(2):127–153 Hassan MA, Killick SR (2004) Negative lifestyle is associated with a significant reduction in fecundity. Fertil Steril 81(2):384–392 Parazzini F, Ferraroni M, Fedele L, Bocciolone L, Rubessa S, Riccardi A (1995) Pelvic endometriosis: reproductive and menstrual risk factors at different stages in Lombardy, northern Italy. J Epidemiol Community Health 49(1):61–64 Adelusi B, al-Twaijiri MH, al-Meshari A, Kangave D, al-Nuaim LA, Younnus B (1998) Correlation of smoking and coffee drinking with sperm progressive motility in infertile males. Afr J Med Med Sci 27(1–2):47–50 Curtis KM, Savitz DA, Arbuckle TE (1997) Effects of cigarette smoking, caffeine consumption, and alcohol intake on fecundability. Am J Epidemiol 146(1):32–41 Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Rights and permissions About this article Cite this article Chiaffarino, F., Bravi, F., Cipriani, S. et al. Coffee and caffeine intake and risk of endometriosis: a meta-analysis. Eur J Nutr 53, 1573–1579 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-014-0662-7 Received: Accepted: Published: Issue date: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-014-0662-7

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-doi-fallback ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Caffeine Coffee Endometriosis Caffeine Coffee Databases, Factual Diet Endometriosis Female Humans Risk Factors

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (32)

Cited by (35)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-20T06:14:18.781669+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:18:40.923139+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK