Arise... Towards Higher Grounds

Following a press release in June 2025, the media jumped into action: a “large study” from Harvard concluded that coffee supported “healthy aging” in women. Fox News painted the broad brushstrokes: tens of thousands of women followed for decades with coffee drinkers faring better. Newsweek highlighted relevance to women over 70, Time led with good news for coffee lovers, and The New York Times titled its piece “That Cup of Coffee May Have a Longer-Term Perk.”

Coverage wasn’t confined to the US. The Independent called it a “landmark 30-year study,” while SkyNews, ConsumerAffairs, and Medical News Today also covered the findings, with spillover into video and podcasts.

This article was co-authored with Luke Shors, follow his publication BioMythic here!

Most pieces conveyed the same details alongside requisite coffee puns. Each additional cup resulted in a 2% to 5% better chance of becoming a “healthy ager.” Tea and decaffeinated coffee had no effect; soda had a negative impact. The sample size (over 47,000 women) and duration (over 30 years) were emphasized as evidence of strength.

Nearly all coverage included the word “study.” Here’s the problem: this was an abstract presented at a conference, not a peer reviewed or published research study. To journalists’ credit, most articles included caveats: a few noted it was observational (unable to prove causality), and The Independent, Time, and The New York Times mentioned the lack of peer review. But for readers skimming headlines, the implication was clear. Over ten months later, details still haven’t found their way into public light. When The Independent’s title includes “landmark study,” the lede has been sufficiently buried.

This isn’t a critique of the abstract’s team of authors. Science involves socializing early results to elicit feedback; peer review can take months or years while conference presentations invite immediate input from fellow scientists. In a research environment where dollars are scarce, there is pragmatic motivation to share findings through conferences and preprints to secure follow-on funding.

Without a full manuscript, it’s difficult to validate conclusions or assertions from the news cascade. If coffee’s benefits stem from its bioactive compounds, why doesn’t decaffeinated coffee show similar effects? Perhaps fewer people in the sample drank decaf, making it harder to cross the threshold of statistical significance.

More importantly, perhaps the positive effects have nothing to do with coffee itself and everything about who drinks it. Perhaps people who drink coffee through advancing years are healthy enough to tolerate it. Coffee drinking doesn’t cause good health; a long-time habit simply reveals those who possess it. Without the manuscript, it’s difficult to know how authors parse these alternative narratives.

Taking news coverage at face value suggests women should drink more coffee. But given the observational nature and lack of peer-reviewed publication, maybe all we can say is that women who currently drink coffee and tolerate it well should continue doing so.

When published, these questions may be addressed. Yet if it’s never published—as is the fate of many conference abstracts—media outlets are unlikely to walk back their headlines. Even if published, coverage may be muted as “old news.” The irony here is that the full study likely contains critical nuance that could help readers interpret the findings for their own lives.

Outside science, it seems improbable journalists would get so far ahead of themselves. If James Cameron announced plans for a Titanic sequel and felt the plans were excellent, would outlets proclaim Titanic 2 is an excellent movie? Or would they describe a ‘planned’ movie sailing into uncharted waters, with serious plot icebergs ahead?

Another study published in February of this year evaluated the link between coffee and dementia, and received a more measured response from mass media. The research team used the same British data set tracking the health of nurses over decades, finding “...higher caffeinated coffee intake was significantly associated with lower dementia risk.” The New York Times reported on the findings, this time adding significant nuance by noting the relationship was not necessarily causal despite correcting for confounding variables like diet, exercise, and smoking. The journalist concluded by exploring other potential influences on the results and a common sense takeaway: if you’re already a coffee or tea consumer, drink on!

There’s a reason science favors peer review over press releases, with manuscripts open to public scrutiny of methodology and results. Even well-intentioned researchers sometimes get things wrong, overlooking critical data or missing confounding variables. For journalists covering such work, it’s important to wait until the science is fully brewed.

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