Study links coffee to a longer life
Biggest benefit from drinking 3-4 cups a day
Almost any amount of coffee is better than none and three to four cups daily may extend lives, a new study suggests, one year after the hot beverage was cleared as a potential carcinogen.
British researchers who parsed more than 200 studies found drinking three to four cups of coffee per day is associated with a lower risk of death and heart disease compared to abstaining.
Coffee consumption was also associated with lower risks of some cancers (prostate, endometrial, leukemia, non-melanoma skin cancer and liver cancer), nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, type 2 diabetes, fractures (in men but not women), Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
A year after the World Health Organization deemed coffee no longer a cancer risk (unless it’s drunk super hot), the new study would suggest almost any amount of coffee is better than none (except for pregnant women and women with a higher risk of fracture).
“Coffee consumption seems generally safe within usual levels of intake, with summary estimates indicating largest risk reduction for various health outcomes at three to four cups a day, and more likely to benefit health than harm,” researchers from the University of Southampton report in this week’s issue of the British Medical Journal.
With its status as one of the most consumed beverages worldwide, “even small individual health effects could be important on a population scale,” they wrote.
British media seized on the coffee review as if it was gospel, with headlines like “Why you should drink FOUR cups of coffee per day,” and “Even seven cups of coffee a day cuts risk of early death, study suggests."
True, the results are in line with several recent large reviews, but others have come to mixed conclusions. Most of the 201 studies in the new “umbrella review” in the BMJ were observational; only 17 involved randomized controlled trials. Observational studies can’t prove cause and effect.
“Should doctors recommend drinking coffee to prevent disease? Should people start drinking coffee for health reasons? The answer to both questions is, ‘no,’” Dr. Eliseo Guallar of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health cautioned in an accompanying editorial.
Some people may be at higher risk of adverse effects, Guallar said, adding that “substantial uncertainty” exists around the risks of quaffing more than five cups a day. Consumption should be restricted to “moderate” intake — no more than 400 mg of caffeine a day, he said.
People also tend to drink coffee with foods rich in refined sugars and fats.
Still, “even with these caveats, moderate coffee consumption seems remarkably safe,” Guallar writes in the BMJ.
It’s not clear how coffee might protect people from premature death. According to the U of Southampton team, “coffee contains a complex mixture of bioactive compounds with plausible biological mechanisms for benefiting health.” For one thing, caffeine is thought to have antioxidant effects, and people tend to get more of their daily intake of dietary antioxidants from coffee than from tea, fruit or vegetables, they said.
In their review, the team found decaffeinated coffee was associated with a lower risk of death from all causes, as well as cardiovascular disease, with the biggest risk reduction seen at two to four cups daily. There was a “marginal” benefit when it came to death from cancer, but it didn’t reach statistical significance.
MODERATE COFFEE CONSUMPTION SEEMS REMARKABLY SAFE.