Drinking Coffee = Longer Life?
Coffee addicts: rejoice! A new study suggests that coffee drinkers might live longer.
Published in July, 2018 in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study found “inverse associations for coffee drinking with mortality, including among participants drinking up to 8 or more cups per day,” suggesting a correlation between volume of coffee consumed and a lowered mortality risk.
Focusing on British subjects, the study followed a group of about 495,000 people (average age: 57) from 2006 to 2016, 78% of whom drank coffee consistently over that 10-year period. During observation, 14,255 participants died, leading researchers to deduce that risk of death, especially due to cancer or heart problems, decreased depending on coffee consumption. The New York Times used the presented data to calculate that “those who drank a cup a day had a 6 percent lower risk than those who drank less than that, and people who drank eight or more cups a day had a 14 percent lower risk.”
In addition, it appears that the results were similar across subjects regardless of certain drinking preferences, as instant, ground, and decaf coffee all yielded comparable findings.
Health experts, however, are quick to point out that this study should not necessarily encourage coffee-avoiders to change their ways.
“At this point, the study provides reassurance to coffee drinkers, not guidance,” Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute, told The New York Times. “The results don’t indicate that people should begin drinking coffee for its health benefits.”
We say, drink up! Your health could depend on it!