''Menopausal women who consume high levels of caffeine are 70% more likely to have urinary incontinence than women who don't," says Jon Gleason, MD, an instructor and fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical School's Division of Women's Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery.
He is slated to present the findings Friday at the American Urogynecologic Society's annual meeting in Long Beach, Calif.
Caffeine sources include coffee, tea, beverages, foods, and some pharmaceuticals.
In Gleason’s study, women who reported taking in 329 milligrams of caffeine a day -- about three cups of coffee -- or more had a 70% higher likelihood of having the bladder problem.
Urinary incontinence, or the unintentional loss of urine, affects more than 13 million Americans, mostly women. Women are most likely to develop it either during pregnancy or childbirth or with menopause and its hormonal changes, due to pelvic muscle weakness. But it's not a natural consequence of aging, experts say.
Caffeine and Bladder Problems: The Study
Previous research has produced conflicting findings about caffeine and bladder problems, Gleason says. So he looked at a larger group of women than those studied in previous research.Gleason evaluated data on 1,356 women, aged 20 to 85, who had participated in the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a large nationally representative survey.
The women kept food diaries on two separate days and also answered questions about bladder function.
Moderate caffeine intake, defined as about 182 milligrams a day, was not linked to urinary incontinence. But higher intakes -- 329.5 milligrams or higher -- were.
People who had a high caffeine intake were more likely to be aged 40-59, to drink alcohol, and to be non-Hispanic white.
Gleason found no links between urinary incontinence and body mass index, vaginal childbirth, or high intake of water...read more
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