Drink to Long Life: With Coffee
Is coffee good for you? It is if you want to live longer. . . .
Coffee is enjoying a renaissance of good health news. As long as you drink it right. There seems to be a coffee sweet spot. Drink one or two cups a day, and seniors reduce their risk of mild cognitive impairment. Other recent research has found that coffee drinking benefits cholesterol, metabolic syndrome and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
And now a huge, new European study has found that coffee drinkers reduce their risk of death from several diseases.
This new study followed 521,330 people from ten European countries for an average of 16.4 years. It found that, compared to people who don’t drink coffee at all, people who drank the most coffee had significantly lower risk of dying prematurely from any cause: the reduction in risk was 7% for women and an even better 12% for men. Drinking coffee significantly reduced the risk of dying from digestive diseases by 59% in men and by 40% in women. Women who drank coffee also enjoyed a 22% reduction of risk of dying from circulatory disease and a 30% better chance of not dying from cerebrovascular disease. The one negative for women was a 31% increase in risk of dying from ovarian cancer. Remember, though, that overall they had a 7% lower risk of dying from all conditions combined.
The study only measured coffee drinking habits once during the study, so, it is not clear how much coffee the people who drank the most actually drank. Other recent research, like the research at the top of this blog, suggests a coffee drinking sweet spot. It found that the risk of dying from any cause goes up at four cups a day.
Combined, then, these studies suggest that drinking one or two cups of coffee a day is really good for you, but that drinking four or more cups of coffee a day is really bad for you.
Ann Intern Med 2017;167(4):236-247
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