I have good news for over half the adult population of the United States. Science has, once again, confirmed your coffee drinking custom is anything but a bad habit.
In fact, your favorite brew is very likely extending your life.
If you’re a regular Healthier Talk reader it should come as no surprise that there are benefits to drinking coffee. Over the years I’ve shared the details on countless studies confirming java drinking has a number of healthy side effects.
For example as far back as 2009 we were reporting a link between coffee drinking and a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s and memory loss.
Coffee drinking linked to lower risk of deadly diseases
Over the years we’ve learned how…
- drinking four cups a day could slash your diabetes risk up to 56 percent1,2,3,4
- folks drinking a cup a day have a 22 to 25 percent lower risk of stroke5
- heavy coffee drinkers have up to a 60 percent lower risk of prostate cancer6
But now researchers have completed what is the largest study on the topic to date, and the jury is in.
Scientists confirm there’s a link between daily coffee drinking and a reduced risk of dying from a number of serious diseases including cancer, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and diabetes.
For the study, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed data from over 185,000 adults who were between the ages of 45 and 75 when the study began.7,8
Volunteer’s diet habits—including how much coffee they drank—as well as lifestyle and medical history were tracked for an average of 16 years.
Anti-aging bean beverage may help you live longer
Folks who drank just a cup a day of java juice were 12 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who avoided coffee or drank it very rarely.
And the more anti-aging coffee people drank, the better their odds of staying alive were. The volunteers who indulged in two to three cups daily had their risk of dying plummet 18 percent.
And decaf drinkers there’s finally some good news for you all too. Previous research questioned whether or not folks who drank decaffeinated coffee got the same benefits as high test drinkers.
But according to the new research, a lower death rate was linked to both decaf and caffeinated coffee drinking.
Plus the link between coffee drinking and a lower chance of dying prematurely stretched across four different ethnicities, showing coffee drinking can likely benefit folks regardless of race.
Coffee hasn’t been without its critics over the years, of course. Rumors have persisted that coffee drinking may be bad for your health. And for years some naysayers even insisted coffee could be a potential carcinogen.
Coffee could help fight cancer and disease
But the science says differently. Even the World Health Organization now confirms your favorite anti-aging brew could lower the risk for liver and uterine cancers.
The truth is coffee is packed with antioxidants and phenolic compounds that fight cancer and disease. And research over the years has found coffee drinking is associated with a lower risk for
- certain cancers
- liver disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- type 2 diabetes
- dementia
If you aren’t caffeine sensitive, and don’t experience any tummy troubles from drinking coffee, most experts now agree coffee drinking brings a bunch of health benefits to the table. Coffee can be a part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
So go ahead and indulge. Just be sure to skip the sugary syrups and sweeteners. Down your coffee black or with a splash of cream instead.
References:
1. “Why coffee protects against diabetes: Researchers discover molecular mechanism behind drink’s prophylactic effect,” UCLA Newsroom, EurekAlert, January 12,2001
2. “Coffee consumption is inversely associated with type 2 diabetes in Chinese,” Eur J Clin Invest., 2011 Jan 12.
3. “Coffee and caffeine consumption in relation to sex hormone-binding globulin and risk of type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women,” Diabetes, 2011 Jan;60(1):269-75
4. “Therapeutic Opportunities for Caffeine in Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases,” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Volume 20, Supplement 1, 2010
5. “Coffee Consumption and Risk of Stroke in Women,” Stroke, 2011
6. “Coffee Consumption and Prostate Cancer Risk and Progression in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study,” J Natl Cancer Inst. 2011 Jun 8; 103(11): 876–884
7. “Coffee Drinking and Mortality in 10 European Countries: A Multinational Cohort Study,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017, DOI: 10.7326/M16-2945
8. “Association of Coffee Consumption with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Nonwhite Populations,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017
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