Assessing the association of coffee consumption on the relationship of chronic pain with depression and anxiety

ABSTRACT

Background

A bidirectional relationship between chronic pain (CP) and mental disorders has been reported, and coffee was believed to be associated with both. However, the association of coffee in this bidirectional relationship remains unclear. We aim to analyze the association of coffee consumption on the relationship of CP with depression and anxiety.

Methods

A total of 376,813 participants from UK Biobank were included. We collected data on anxiety, depression and CP from objects of our study population. The association of coffee consumption on the relationship of CP with depression and anxiety was assessed through logistic/linear regression models. Moreover, seemingly unrelated estimation test (SUEST) was used to compare whether the coefficients differed in two different groups.

Results

We observed significant associations of coffee consumption in the interaction of CP with depression and anxiety, such as the association of multisite chronic pain (MCP) on self-reported depression (β_coffee= 0.421, β_non-coffee= 0.488, P_SUEST = 0.001), and the association of MCP on generalized anxiety disorder-7 (GAD-7) scores (β_coffee= 0.561, β_non-coffee= 0.678, P_SUEST = 0.004) were significantly different between coffee drinking and non-coffee drinking groups. Furthermore, in analysis stratified by gender, we found headache (β_male= 0.392, β_female= 0.214, P_SUEST = 0.022) and hip pain (β_male= 0.480, β_female= 0.191, P_SUEST = 0.021) had significant associations with self-reported depression between males and females groups in coffee drinkers.

Conclusions

Our results suggested that coffee consumption has a significant association on the relationship of CP with depression and anxiety.

KEYWORDS:

• Coffee
• chronic pain
• depression
• anxiety

Acknowledgements

XQ and FZ conceived and designed the study; XQ and CL wrote the manuscript; All authors collected the data and XQ carried out the statistical analyses; WW, DH, YZ, QC, NZ, XC and SS made preparations for the manuscript at first. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data used in this article is approved by UK Biobank (application 46,478) and the Ethics Advisory Committee (EAC). The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to [email protected].

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Scientific Foundation of China [grant number 81922059] and Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China [grant number 2021JCW-08].

Notes on contributors

Xiaoyue Qin

Xiaoyue Qin is a postgraduate student in epidemiology and health statistics at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Chun’e Li

Chun'e Li is a postgraduate student in epidemiology and health statistics at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Wenming Wei

Wenming Wei is a postgraduate student in epidemiology and health statistics at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Dan He

Dan He is a postgraduate student in epidemiology and health statistics at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Yijing Zhao

Yijing Zhao is a postgraduate student in epidemiology and health statistics at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Qingqing Cai

Qingqing Cai is a postgraduate student in epidemiology and health statistics at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Na Zhang

Na Zhang is a postgraduate student in public health at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Xiaoge Chu

Xiaoge Chu is a postgraduate student in public health at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Sirong Shi

Sirong Shi is a postgraduate student in public health at the School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Feng Zhang

Feng Zhang is a PhD in Biology and Molecular Biology, Associate Dean of the School of Public Health at Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at Xi'an Jiaotong University. His research interests include molecular epidemiology of complex diseases and bioinformatics.