The calories Americans add to their coffee rose from 43 a day in 2003 to 60 a day in 2018, while the amount of coffee they drank stayed flat, according to a Tufts University study published online on 19 October 2026 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The researchers traced most of the rise to nondairy creamer. Daily Coffee News reported the findings on 26 October, describing the change as a climb of nearly 40% across the 15 years.
What did the Tufts researchers measure?
The team, led by doctoral candidate Yongyi Pan with Bingjie Zhou and senior author Fang Fang Zhang of Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, used eight rounds of the federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, known as NHANES, covering 2003 to 2018. Daily Coffee News reported a sample of 30,459 adults. Each person reported everything they ate and drank over two separate 24-hour periods, which let the researchers estimate what went into each cup and how many calories it carried, according to the university's release of 20 October.
Over the same years, coffee drinking itself held at about 13 ounces per person per day, the release says. The rise in calories came from what was added to the cup.
Which additions grew?
Nondairy creamer accounts for most of it. The release puts its contribution at 7.71 calories a day in 2003 and 18.5 in 2018, and by weight it rose from 3.37 grams to about 8 grams a day. Nondairy milk rose from 0.27 grams to 2.45 grams a day. Dairy milk, sugar and sugar substitutes showed no significant change, according to Daily Coffee News.
By 2018, the study's figures show creamer had overtaken both of the older additions on calories:
- Nondairy creamer: 18.5 calories a day, per the Tufts release of 20 October 2026, for 2018
- Sugar: 16 calories a day, per the same release, for 2018
- Dairy milk: 11 calories a day, per the same release, for 2018
- By weight, dairy milk was still the largest addition at 21.4 grams a day, against 8.1 grams of creamer and 4.4 grams of sugar, per the same release, for 2018
Put another way, the 17 extra calories a day reported between 2003 and 2018 are about the size of the entire sugar contribution the study recorded for 2018.
What did the authors and other nutritionists say?
Pan said nondairy creamers can be high in saturated fat, which is dense in calories, and that this may help explain their rising share, according to Daily Coffee News and Newsweek. Zhang said coffee has been linked with several health benefits but that sugar and cream added to it can raise intake of added sugar and saturated fat, according to the same reports.
Newsweek also spoke to Rashmi Gajree, a registered nutritionist in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the study. She said calories taken in liquid form may not be very filling, and that nondairy creamers are not inherently a problem when used in moderation.
What can the study not show?
The paper did not look at health outcomes, Daily Coffee News noted, so it reports what people put in their coffee rather than what that did to them. It relies on people recalling their own diets, which the Tufts release acknowledges can vary from one day to the next. And the survey data end in 2018, so the study cannot say whether the trend carried on after that.
The study follows earlier work on what people add to coffee. Daily Coffee News cited a 2025 Tufts study of more than 46,000 American adults that associated black coffee, or coffee with little added sugar or saturated fat, with lower mortality risk. On the consumer side, a 2026 study of Gen Z coffee buyers compared what young buyers say about sustainability with what they buy, and the way milk is handled behind a bar is covered in how to tell when milk is steamed enough.
Photograph: Konstantinos Papadopoulos, Unsplash. A cup of coffee with creamer and a biscotti; not from the study.
