Drink to your health: Study links coffee consumption to longevity

By Kate Hassett

Drink to your health: Study links coffee consumption to longevity

In excellent news for coffee lovers, a new study published in the journal Circulation gives our daily habit hope.

According to latest research by the team at the Harvard School of Public Health, consuming coffee on a daily basis can have significant health benefits, especially when your longevity is concerned.

Researchers analysed data from more than 208,000 participants of three ongoing studies over a period of 30 years. The men and women who took part in the study filled out daily questionnaires about their diet and coffee consumption.

“In our study, we found people who drank three to five cups of coffee per day had about a 15 percent lower [risk of premature] mortality compared to people who didn’t drink coffee,” says one of the study authors, nutrition researcher Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health. Decaf drinkers also saw benefits.

The published findings link to a body of evidence that suggests drinking coffee has various health benefits – from reducing your risk of stroke, to reducing your risk of type 2 diabetes.

Obviously over-consumption of caffeine isn’t good for anyone, and can have adverse effects on sleep patterns, anxiety and general wellbeing, but around 200 milligrams is apparently the optimal amount to enhance cognitive function.

Co-author Frank Hu said: “This study provides further evidence that moderate consumption of coffee may confer health benefits in terms of reducing premature death due to several diseases.”

Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation Emily Reeve told The Independent: “It is important to remember that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is what really matters if you want to keep your heart healthy, not how much coffee you drink.

“Previous research suggests that drinking up to five cups of coffee a day is not harmful to your cardiovascular health, and this study supports that. But more research is needed to fully understand how coffee affects our body and what it is in coffee that may affect a person’s risk of heart attack or stroke.”

 

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