Coffee consumption may prolong life
Drinking coffee daily has been associated with lower risk of death whether it has caffeine or not
As I write this blog entry, I have a rather large Americano with milk on hand. I was happy to see a news release today that daily coffee may help you live longer! Not that I aspire a long life, but a healthy one would not go amiss.
So what’s the chat?
Coffee is rapidly taking over tea as the main go to beverage for us Brits (1). A recent study suggested that coffee may be protective against liver damage (2), but a new, very large study in the US has identified a link between daily coffee consumption and reduced risk of death from a host of diseases including cancer, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease.
The researchers studied over 180,000 people between the ages of 45 and 75 years of age and followed them for 16 years on average, recording their diets, coffee consumption, lifestyle, medical diagnoses and family history. They even recorded whether the coffee consumed was caffeinated or decaffeinated.
During this study, almost 60,000 people died with the leading causes being cancer and heart disease. What they found was, for those who drank three cups of coffee every day had an 18% lower chance of death – irrespective of whether that coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated!
If you read my blog posts in the past, you’ll often hear me say “but these types of studies do not prove cause and effect, only association”. It’s definitely an interesting find, and combined with other studies on coffee, the evidence is getting stronger than coffee consumption is not as unhealthy as some people believe it to be.
That said, not everyone can tolerate caffeine, so there is no reason to start drinking coffee if you don’t like it or can’t tolerate it. But if you do like a daily cup of joe – then there’s limited evidence on why you should give it up.
Source
News Release from University of Southern California
Seb is a writer and blogger of food and nutrition. He holds a bachelors and a masters degree in nutrition science, and has studied sports and exercise nutrition at postgraduate level. He specialises in plant-based nutrition and believes passionately that we can all live with a little less meat.