Great News For Coffee Enthusiasts: It Makes Us Live Longer!

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You can drink that cup of coffee with a little more enthusiasm, knowing you’ll live longer, right? A study authored by a researcher at the U.S. National Cancer Institute shows that coffee can boost the chance for long life, even for those that drink eight cups a day!

The study was published on 2 July in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, but it doesn’t explain why coffee affects longevity.

However, this study is the first large one to involve almost half-a-million British adults, also including people with issues on how their body used caffeine.

The study found that instant, ground and decaffeinated boosted longevity, and after a decade, the follow-up shows that coffee drinkers had a lower risk of death than the abstainers.

It Is Reassuring

Coffee drinkers were 10-15% less likely to die after ten years of follow-up. Difference like the amount of coffee or genetic variations didn’t affect the results.

“It’s hard to believe that something we enjoy so much could be good for us. Or at least not be bad,” said Alice Lichtenstein, who is a Tufts University nutrition expert. She was not involved in the research, but she admits that the results echo previous research, adding reassurance for coffee drinkers.

The lead author of the study and researcher at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, Erikka Loftfield, stated that coffee contains over 1,000 chemical compounds, and includes antioxidants which protect cells from being damaged. She added that the next step in her research is to explain why it boosts longevity.

She and her team invited 9 million British adults, and only 498,134 women and men (40-69-year-olds) agreed. The low participation rate showed that the ones that were involved were healthier than the general population in the U.K.

Participants filled out questionnaires, answering questions about daily coffee consumption, exercise, and habits. Then, they received physical exams and blood tests. Most of them were coffee drinkers. A third (154,000) drank 2-3 cups of coffee every day, and 10,000 drank over 8 cups of coffee daily.

After ten years, 14,225 participants died, most of them of heart disease or cancer.

Black Coffee is Healthy

In the study, coffee drinkers didn’t have an increased risk of dying from heart disease or other blood pressure causes compared to the nondrinkers. Combining all causes of death, researchers found that even people with a slow caffeine metabolism lived longer.

Researchers took into consideration factors like alcohol drinking and smoking – as coffee drinkers were more likely to have these habits. However, drinking coffee canceled these factors out.

Lichtenstein explains that the study didn’t ask participants if they drank black coffee or with cream and sugar. She explains that it’s not healthy to add fat and calories to it.

Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.