There’s another scientific evidence for you to enjoy your regular cup of joe in the morning.
Two new large studies published Monday, July 10, in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that coffee could extend one’s life through reducing the risk of death from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or even cancer. This link between coffee and reduced death risk held up even if one is having a decaffeinated drink.
The studies involved more than 700,000 participants from across a number of races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds.
1st Study: Across 10 Leading Causes Of Death In The US
In the first study, a team out of the University of Southern California, University of Hawaii, and the National Cancer Institute analyzed the coffee-drinking habits of more than 185,000 Americans participating in the Multiethnic Cohort Study, which had been following volunteers since 1993.
Subjects who consumed two or more cups of coffee a day were around 18 percent less likely to die during the study period, compared with the 16 percent who did not drink coffee at all.
Increased coffee intake also led to fewer chances of dying from some of the leading causes of death in the country, from heart disease and cancer to chronic lower respiratory disease and kidney disease. Coffee, however, had no effect on the risks of dying from pneumonia, flu, Alzheimer’s disease, suicide, or accidents.
The associations were not found to vary by race or ethnicity, with the links proving statistically significant in every group except Native Hawaiians, who researchers thought were not sufficient enough in numbers in the research to prove anything.
2nd Study: Coffee And Early Mortality In 10 European Nations
The second study gathered data from a study to probe the same link in more than 521,000 people from France, Denmark, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
The discovery: the top quarter of coffee drinkers in every nation emerged less likely to die during the study period than those who were not coffee drinkers at all.
Accounting for other death factors, the researchers estimated there was 12 percent lower risk of early death in males and 7 percent lower in females.
Even Decaf Does The Trick
Both teams saw evidence that the benefits are available for those who consumed decaf.
Note that the studies were not designed to confirm that coffee consumption led to longer lives. But an editorial accompanying the studies cited several potential reasons for dodging early death, such as the polyphenols in coffee that act as antioxidants and help cells fight free radicals.
The new findings bolster evidence of coffee benefits. But it’s crucial to point out that too much of a good thing could be bad: a teen from South Carolina, for instance, recently died after drinking a café latte, a large Diet Mountain Dew, and an energy drink in a relatively short span of time.
