Drink More Coffee and Live Longer?

There have been numerous reports on the health benefits and the risks of drinking coffee, with findings that are often somewhat inconclusive or even contradictory. A new study, reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, comes down fairly heavily on the side of coffee drinkers.

The information was obtained from some 85,000 women participating in the Nurses’ health Study and 40,000 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. They were all free of cancer and cardiovascular disease at enrollment. Lifestyle and food-frequency questionnaires were completed every 2 to 4 years, from 1980 to 2004.

After adjustments were made for age, smoking, and other cardiac and cancer risk factors, women who drank 2-3 cups of caffeinated coffee daily had a 25% lower risk of death from heart disease than non-drinkers, and an 18% lower death rate from a cause other than cancer or heart disease. Men drinking 2-3 cups of coffee daily, on the other hand, had neither a greater nor a lesser mortality rate during the follow-up period. There were no findings indicative of a coffee-related effect on the death-rate from cancer. Decaffeinated coffee had similar, but weaker, associations as ‘regular’ coffee.

So, score another one for coffee - along with chocolate and alcohol, which were also thought to be bad for us some years back. It’s all a matter of dosage.