Previous research into coffee and gout has concentrated on males has indicated that drinking coffee regularly can lower the risk of contracting the disease.

Researchers led by Dr. Hyon Choi of Boston University’s School of Medicine wanted to discover if women could also benefit similarly, and so they studied 89,433 women enrolled in the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study that began in 1976 looking for instances of gout in women, particularly older women whose uric-acid levels are likely to increase with the loss of estrogen related to menopause.

The research, published in the August 25 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also studied the lifestyles, diet, and beverage consumption habits of the women recorded in questionnaires completed every two to four years by participants since 1980. The findings, after other gout risk factors such as body-fat mass, alcohol consumption, use of diuretics and dairy intake had been statistically controlled, showed that regular coffee drinkers have a much lower risk of gout. 

Compared to non-coffee drinkers, “the higher the consumption level, the lower the risk,” according to Choi, quoted in Reuters Health. “The risk of gout was 22% lower with coffee intake of one to three cups a day and 57% lower with a coffee intake of more than four cups a day.”