Association between tea, coffee and caffeine consumption and risk of female infertility: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objectives: To explore the association between tea, coffee, and caffeine consumption and the risk of female infertility.

Methods: We analyzed data from 2099 females aged 18 to 44 years, participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2013-2018. We used generalized linear models (GLM) and generalized additive model (GAM) to investigate the dose-response relationship between the tea, coffee, and caffeine consumption and infertility, adjusting for potential confounders.

Results: A non-linear relationship was detected between tea consumption and infertility and the inflection point was 2 cups/day. On the right side of the inflection point, we did not detect a significant association. However, on the left side, we found a negative relationship between tea consumption and infertility (OR: 0.73; 95% CI: 0.57 to 0.93; P = 0.0122). Meanwhile, our study found no significant association between coffee (0.96, 0.81 to 1.13, P = 0.6189) or caffeine consumption (1.15, 0.93 to 1.42, P = 0.2148) and female infertility.

Conclusions: Tea consumption was non-linearly associated with infertility, whereas no significant associations were found between coffee, caffeine consumption and infertility.

Keywords: Caffeine intake; Coffee consumption; Cross-sectional study; Infertility; Lifestyle; Tea consumption.

Fig. 1

Flow chart for participants recruitment of this study, NHANES 2013–2018

Fig. 2

Adjusted associations of tea consumption with infertility. A non-linear relationship between tea consumption and infertility was found in generalized additive models (GAM). Adjusted: age; race; energy intake; educational level, BMI, HEI, physical activity total time, marital status, menstrual regularity, history of birth control pills use, smoking status; drinking status and coffee consumption. BMI, body mass index; HEI, healthy eating index

Fig. 3

Effect size of tea (A), coffee (B) and caffeine (C) consumption on infertility in subgroups analysis. Adjusted: age, race, energy intake, educational level, BMI, HEI, physical activity total time, marital status, menstrual regularity, history of birth control pills use, smoking status, drinking status and coffee consumption. In each case, the model is not adjusted for the stratification variable. BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval; HEI, healthy eating index; OR, odds radio