Folks who drink multiple cups of coffee per day are less likely to have risks of premature death and heart disease than those who don't drink coffee at all, researchers concluded on Wednesday, Nov. 22.
Four Cups Of Coffee Might Be Good For You
The research, which extracted evidences from over 200 past studies on the matter, also discovered that drinking coffee was linked to lower risks of diabetes, liver disease, some cancers, and even dementia.
Despite those findings, researchers couldn't actually prove whether coffee was the cause and warned that too much of it could be harmful for pregnant women. As a disclaimer, the researchers also said that people shouldn't drink coffee as a way to prevent disease or cure illnesses.
Apparently, three to four cups of coffee a day is the optimum amount, according to the researchers.
It's not really shocking that coffee is one of the most consumed beverages globally — millions of people drink it before starting their day jobs, and they refill their cups throughout the day. To acquire an understanding of its effects on human health, Robin Poole, a public health specialist at the University of Southampton in Britain, led an "umbrella review" of 218 studies around the world. Of those studies, only 17 were clinical trials, and the rest were observational research.
An umbrella review, for the uninitiated, aggregates and synthesizes previous research and studies to generate a clearer understanding of what they all point to.
"Coffee drinking appears safe within usual patterns of consumption," the researchers concluded in their study, published in the British Medical Journal on Nov. 22.
But Is Coffee The Reason?
Those who don't drink coffee are found to have lower risks of premature death, especially those who drink up to three cups a day. Drinking above that number in the same period didn't appear to show any harm, although the benefits were less apparent.
Again, as majority of the whole research pool was based on observation, the team was unable to determine cause-and-effect relationships, so while the aforementioned benefits are great on paper, it's not certain that they're, in fact, the result of drinking coffee.
"Factors such as age, whether people smoked or not and how much exercise they took could all have had an effect," said Paul Roderick, one of the study's authors.
Ultimately, the research lines up with recent reviews and studies that say drinking coffee doesn't seem to be hazardous.
"There is a balance of risks in life, and the benefits of moderate consumption of coffee seem to outweigh the risks," said Roderick.
In July, there were two studies that suggested drinking coffee leads to a longer life. However, when too much caffeine is consumed, it may take a toll on the body.
What do you make of this new research? Do you personally think drinking three to four cups of coffee per day can be healthy? As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
