People who drink between 1.5 and 3.5 cups of coffee a day are less likely to die — even when they add sugar, according to a large study
- Chinese scientists monitored 171,000 people for the newspaper for seven years
- None had cancer or heart disease at the start of the study period
- They found that people who drank up to three and a half cups of coffee a day had a one-third lower risk of dying from all causes
- Scientists couldn’t tell why coffee had this protective benefit
Drinking one and a half to three and a half cups of coffee a day could add years to your life, a large study finds.
A Chinese research team followed 171,000 people for seven years and found that those who drank coffee regularly had about a third less risk of dying than those who didn’t.
It doesn’t matter if the coffee is plain or sweetened with sugar, they added.
Several studies have pointed to coffee’s potential health benefits, from reducing your risk of type 2 diabetes to being less likely to become depressed.
Scientists suspect this may be because the beans contain antioxidants that help reduce internal inflammation and cell damage.
Scientists have found that drinking up to three and a half cups of coffee a day can make someone live longer than a non-coffee drinker (stock image)
In the study, a team from Jinan University in Guangzhou, outside Hong Kong, analyzed data from the UK Biobank – a dataset containing medical and genetic information on more than half a million Britons – from 2009 to 2018.
The participants were about 56 years old on average and had neither cancer nor heart disease at the start of the study.
The amount of coffee consumed each day was measured at the start of the study.
The results showed that a total of 3,177 deaths were recorded during the study, including 1,725 from cancer and 628 from heart disease.
The researchers said their results showed those who had hot beverages had a “lower risk of all-cause mortality” than those who didn’t.
That of Dr. University team led by Dan Liu concluded: “Moderate consumption of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with a lower risk of death.”
But the study was observational, meaning it couldn’t determine whether drinking coffee actually caused the lower number of deaths, just making a correlation.
In addition, the daily amount of coffee consumed was only measured at the start of the study, so changes over time could not be taken into account.
Several studies have pointed to the benefits of drinking coffee, although many others have been inconclusive.
Caffeine — found in coffee — may help reduce inflammation and cell damage that could protect against disease. It also helps keep people more alert.
But despite these benefits, it has also been linked to sleep disorders and risks during pregnancy.
