multiple cups of coffee on a table
Health

Want to Live Longer? Maybe Pour Another Cup of Coffee.

Coffee-lovers rejoice.

The only thing I like better than coffee may be a second—ok, a third—cup. And new research suggests that my vice may even help me live longer.

Researchers in China have found that people who drink coffee appear to live longer. The finding is even true if you put sugar in your coffee (not my jam, but you do you).

The study found that moderate coffee drinkers—those who knock back more between 2.5 and 4.5 cups per day—had a lower risk of death over a seven-year period than those who did not.

People who take their coffee black saw their risk of death lowered by almost 30 percent. People who added sugar also benefitted, just to a slightly lower degree.

This isn’t the first study to suggest coffee is good for you. Previous studies have suggested that joe may lower your risk for conditions including chronic liver disease, cancer, and dementia.

It’s worth noting that previous research has found that you can overdo it. One study found drinking a half a pot of coffee a day comes with some negative health impacts (and probably a case of the jitters).

This new study is based on data from more than 171,000 participants of the UK BioBank, which has collected genetic, lifestyle (including coffee-drinking habits), and health information from more than 500,000 people.  

The researchers tracked participants for seven years, and found that 3,177 people died during that time. 

The team found that, compared with those who did not drink coffee, people who consumed unsweetened coffee had the lowest risk of death.

The Chinese researchers accounted for account factors including age, sex, ethnicity, educational level, smoking status, amount of physical activity, body mass index and diet. But they still caution the findings might not actually be due to the coffee itself.

In an editorial that accompanied the study, Dr Christina Wee, deputy editor of  The Annals of Internal Medicine (the journal in which the study appeared), said the findings weren’t conclusive, but it did appear that drinking coffee was probably not harmful for most people.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make another Americano in my favorite coffee machine

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