Coffee consumption is associated with DNA methylation levels of human blood

Abstract

Beneficial health effects have been attributed to coffee consumption, but it is not yet known whether epigenetics may have a role in this process. Here we associate epigenome-wide DNA methylation levels to habitual coffee consumption from two studies with blood (2100 and 215 participants), and one with saliva samples (256 participants). Adjusting for age, gender, and blood cell composition, one CpG (cg21566642 near ALPPL2) surpassed genome-wide significance (P=3.7 × 10) and from among 10 additional CpGs significant at P≤5.0 × 10, six were located within 1500 bps of a transcriptional start site. Results for these 11 top-ranked CpGs remained significant after further adjusting for smoking. Also, methylation levels of another 135 CpGs were influenced by both coffee drinking and smoking (P≤1.0 × 10). Functional enrichment analysis suggested that coffee-associated CpGs were located near transcription factor binding (P=1.2 × 10) and protein kinase activity genes (P=2.9 × 10). Interestingly, when we stratified by menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), methylation differences with coffee consumption were observed only in women who never used MHT. We did not replicate any of the associations found in blood in our saliva samples, suggesting that coffee may affect DNA methylation levels in immune cells of the blood but not in saliva.

Parkinson’s disease is associated with DNA methylation levels in human blood and saliva

“…It is unlikely that PD status influenced the accuracy of reporting coffee/tea consumption; thus, we would expect non-differential misclassification that tends to bias estimates toward the null. Moreover, we have published a coffee EWAS study using the same samples [ 24 ], which was consistent with the literature on coffee and PD. For example, the estimated effect size for coffee consumption and PD risk for three additional cups of coffee per day (odds ratio [OR] 0.73, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.58–0.92) in our study is consistent with the estimated effect size reported in a meta-analysis of 13 coffee and PD studies (OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.64–0.86) [ 25 ].…”

Aberrant DNA methylation of the p16, APC, MGMT, TIMP3 and CDH1 gene promoters in tumours and the surgical margins of patients with oral cavity cancer

“…Other studies showed that dietary components can influence gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms 63 , 64 . Notably, methylation differences related to coffee consumption were observed only in women who never used menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) and suggest that coffee may affect DNA methylation levels in immune cells of the blood 65 . It is also suggested that oestrogen receptor alpha (ERα) may regulate gene expression partially via DNA methylation 66 .…”

Caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid cytotoxicity, genotoxicity and impact on global DNA methylation in human leukemic cell lines

“…A previous study demonstrated that habitual coffee consumption can alter DNA methylation sites in human genome. It revealed alterations in methylation status of CpG sites located near of 11 genes associated with habitual coffee consumption in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (Chuang et al, 2017).…”