People who drink between 1.5 and 3.5 cups of coffee per day are less likely to die – even if they add sugar, major study finds
- Chinese scientists monitored 171,000 people for the paper over seven years
- None had cancer or heart disease at the beginning of the study period
- They found the risk of death from all causes was lower by a third for people who drunk up to three-and-a-half cups of coffee a day
- Scientists could not say why coffee had this protective benefit
Drinking between one-and-a-half and three-and-a-half cups of coffee a day could add years to your life, a major study finds.
A Chinese research team monitored 171,000 people for seven years and found those who regularly drank coffee were about a third less likely to die than those who did not.
It didn’t matter whether the coffee was plain or sweetened with sugar, they added.
Several studies have pointed to the potential health benefits of coffee from reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes to making someone less likely to be depressed.
Scientists suggest this could be because the beans contain antioxidants, helping reduce internal inflammation and cell damage.
Scientists have found that drinking up to three-and-a-half cups of coffee every day may lead to someone having a longer life 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 of medical and genetic data from more than half a million Britons — from 2009 to 2018.
Participants were about 56 years old on average, and did not have cancer or heart disease when the study began.
The amount of coffee they drunk daily was measured at the beginning of the study.
Results showed 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 the hot drinks had ‘lower risks for all-cause mortality’ than those who did not.
The team led by Dr Dan Liu from the university concluded: ‘Moderate consumption of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with a lower risk for death.’
But the study was observational, meaning it could not determine whether drinking coffee actually caused the lower number of deaths, just establishing a correlation.
It also only measured the amount of coffee drunk per day at the start of the study, so it was unable to account for changes over time.
Several studies have pointed to the benefits of drinking coffee, although many others have been inconclusive.
Caffeine — in coffee — can help to reduce inflammation and cell damage which could protect against disease. It also helps to keep people more alert.
But despite these benefits it has also been associated with disruption to sleeping patterns and risks during pregnancy.
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