Caffeine is well-known for its health benefits, but how much coffee would you need to drink to see a person's life expectancy increase?
Is there a point when coffee becomes more harmful than helpful?
In two new research papers, experts tackle the perfect amount of coffee to drink every day: two to four cups to improve life expectancy, but no more than five cups to avoid the adverse effects.
How Many Cups Of Good Brew Should You Indulge In Daily?
In new research published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, a team of researchers revealed that two to four cups of coffee a day is linked with a decreased all-cause and cause-specific mortality when compared to no coffee consumption.
According to the scientists, coffee reduces the risks of dying through cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and diabetes.
"It is difficult to calculate, but my feeling is that drinking coffee possibly adds another couple of years to your life," said Astrid Nehlig of France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Sunday Times, explaining that part of the reason could be improved focus that a cup of brew brings.
The team reached their conclusions by analyzing 40 previous studies, which consisted of 3,852,651 individuals and 450,256 all-cause and cause-specific deaths.
Is There Such Thing As Too Much Coffee?
Of course, too much of a good thing can lead to negative conditions. Another team of researchers focused on finding out how much coffee will be consumed for the health conditions to outweigh the benefits.
According to new research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, excess caffeine can lead to high blood pressure, which, in turn can cause heart disease. Findings show that drinking six or more cups of coffee every day increases the risk of heart disease by up to 22 percent.
"In order to maintain a healthy heart and a healthy blood pressure, people must limit their coffees to fewer than six cups a day-based on our data six was the tipping point where caffeine started to negatively affect cardiovascular risk," said Elina Hyppönen of the Australian Centre for Precision Health in a news release.
The research team used UK Biobank data of 346,077 individuals aged 37 to 73 years. They found also found that despite the ability of the caffeine-metabolizing gene CYP1A2 to process caffeine better and more quickly, it doesn't mean that individuals who carry this gene can consume more coffee without detrimental effects.
