53% is such a large effect size that if the study were anywhere near accurate, I'd expect to have seen many other similar studies, and other knock-on effects (nothing in the body is isolated, even dementia). But we all know that studies routinely find no or only positive health benefits associated with drinking coffee.
I bet this study is junk.
Without context these relative form are meaningless, and they are presented this way annoyingly commonly by media. For example if the baseline absolute risk is 0.0100% then the study suggests the increase would raise that to 0.0153% in absolute terms... and no I do not know what the baseline is, the headline is truly meaningless to me.
The "1-2 cups/day" reference group had 953 of 123,516 dementia cases (0.77%).
There were no significant associations between coffee or caffeine intake and risk of cognitive impairment, overall dementia, AD, VaD, or moderate/high levels of the individual neuropathologic lesion types.
https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-...
Coffee drinkers at midlife had lower risk of dementia and AD later in life compared with those drinking no or only little coffee adjusted for demographic, lifestyle and vascular factors, apolipoprotein E ε4 allele and depressive symptoms.
https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-...
>A Mendelian randomisation study has provided evidence for a potential adverse effect of higher coffee consumption on the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, with each cup of coffee increasing the risk by 26% (13). However, observational evidence is inconsistent, and of the 11 most recent longitudinal cohort studies on habitual coffee intake and dementia risk, five supported a possible protective effect (14–18), whereas six studies found no association (19–24).
... and it looks like we have a long way to go before there's a conclusion.
As an avid coffee drinker I'd like to feel able to agree with your conclusion but I'll limit the amount wagered.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19219847/
Coffee has a lot of other components such as polyphenols which generally have a beneficial effect. May be that this counteracts the possible negative consequences of caffeine under certain conditions.
http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1
For starters, there are over 1000 chemical compounds in coffee.
For a 53% effect, let's toss out "coffee" and go with a specific compound. Are we talking about pH effects? The possible carcinogens with roasting? Caffeine? Does Diet Coke have this effect? The fertilizer used during growing? Does coffee candy with natural flavor have this effect?
After that, how do the biochemical pathways and inherent homeostasis handle this change?
Forget it. The rabbit hole is endless with studies like this.
A common measurement standard for a cup of coffee is 6 oz.
If this is a 6 oz cup of normal-strength (i.e., weak) coffee, then that's only 36 oz, or three soda cans. What if you consume what's now considered normal, which seems quite strong? Two soda cans?
How large is a mug, which people associate conceptually with "a cup"?