Background: Although numerous epidemiological studies have examined whether coffee consumption is associated with prostate cancer risk, the results remain controversial. Moreover, there are few studies in Asian populations. Therefore, we investigated the association between coffee consumption and the risk of prostate cancer in a large-scale prospective population-based cohort study in Japan.

Methods: Study subjects were 48,222 men (40–69 years) who completed a questionnaire that included questions about their coffee consumption in 1990 for Cohort I and 1993 for Cohort II and were followed up until December 31, 2015. Newly diagnosed cases were classified into localized and advanced using information on local staging, the Gleason score, and degree of differentiation. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidential intervals (95% CI) were estimated using Cox regression analysis.

Results: A total of 1,617 participants were newly diagnosed with prostate cancer during a mean follow-up period of 18.8 years. Of these, 1,099 and 461 patients had localized and advanced cancer, respectively. There was no association between coffee intake and prostate cancer risk. Comparison between the highest and lowest category of coffee consumption produced HRs of 1.08 (95% CI, 0.90–1.30), 1.08 (95% CI, 0.84–1.38), and 1.00 (95% CI, 0.67–1.47) for risk of total, localized, and advanced cancer, respectively. The same results were obtained even when we limited the analysis to patients with subjective symptoms.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that coffee consumption has no impact on prostate cancer risk in Japanese men.

Impact: Coffee has no protective effects against prostate cancer among Japanese men.