Consumption of Coffee and Risk of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Objective: The results from epidemiologic studies on the relationship between intake of coffee and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) remain inconclusive. A meta-analysis was performed to achieve a comprehensive finding regarding the association between intake of coffee and the risk of GDM. Methods: PubMed, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched to find articles published up to August 2021. Observational studies that reported risk estimates [risk ratios (RRs), hazard ratios (HRs), and odds ratios (ORs)] for the association of consumption of coffee with the risk of GDM in pregnant women were included. Random effects model was applied to calculate summarized risk estimate and 95% CIs for the highest vs. lowest categories of intake of coffee. Results: Seven observational studies (three cohort, two case-control, and two cross-sectional studies) with 75,607 participants and 1,625 women with GDM met the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis of comparing the highest vs. lowest intake of coffee categories showed no significant association between intake of coffee and risk of GDM (summarized risk estimate: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.76, 1.05; I-2 = 63.4%). Subgroup analysis showed that consumption of coffee had an inverse relationship with GDM in studies conducted in non-Asia countries (summarized risk estimate: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.58, 0.97; I-2 = 6%). Conclusion: This study has shown that high consumption of coffee did not decrease the risk of GDM. Furthermore, large-scale cohort studies are required to confirm our findings.