A new decade-long study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that “people who drink drank two to three cups per day had about a 12 percent lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers.”
That’s great news for all you caffeine addicts out there! Finally, science is backing up the caffeine buzz that you crave as soon as you roll out bed.
The 10-year study led by Erikka Loftfield Ph.D., a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute, Marilyn C. Cornelis, Ph.D. and Neil Caporaso, MD, looked at approximately 500,000 people in an age range from 38-73, living in England, Scotland and Wales.
The researchers studied the intake of total, ground, instant, and decaffeinated coffee.
The goal of the researchers was to find identify which properties and coffee were responsible for its benefits. One thing they learned was that caffeine is not the likely driver of benefits. They found that even people who drink decaffeinated coffee experienced a longevity boost.
The coffee bean itself is made up of a thousand chemicals, including a number of polyphenol-like, antioxidant-rich compounds.
These compounds include lignans, quinides, and magnesium, some of which may help reduce insulin resistance and inflammation, NPR reported.
Experts who established the US dietary guidelines in 2015, recommended coffee as part of a healthy diet and concluded that daily intake of coffee may protect against Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Two studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last July connected coffee consumption to a longer life.
In another study last year, Spanish researchers also found that people who drink at least four cups of coffee per day showed a 64 percent lower risk of death compared to people who never or almost never drank coffee, USA Today reported. However, they might be bouncing off the walls after that many cups!
The authors of the study wrote that: “Coffee drinking was inversely associated with mortality, including among those drinking 8 or more cups per day and those with genetic polymorphisms indicating slower or faster caffeine metabolism. These findings suggest the importance of noncaffeine constituents in the coffee-mortality association and provide further reassurance that coffee drinking can be a part of a healthy diet.”
Of course, everything is done best in moderation. There’s no need to start consuming an entire pot of coffee every single morning!
