Wake up and drink the coffee for a long life
DRINKING coffee could cut the risk of dying early, with each cup increasing lifespan by up to nine minutes a day, research suggests.
Two studies, including the largest conducted into coffee drinking, found that having even a single cup a day reduces the risk of dying early, and dramatically cuts the chance of death from digestive problems.
People who consumed one 350ml cup of coffee each day reduced their risk of dying early by 12 per cent over 16 years, while three cups reduced the risk by 18 per cent.
Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, calculated that, if causal, it meant a cup of coffee a day extended the average life of a man by three months and a woman by a month.
“Pro-rata, that’s as if that cup of coffee puts, on average, around nine minutes on a man’s life, and around three minutes on a woman’s. So perhaps we should relax and enjoy it,” he said.
Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Southern California said the protective effect of coffee was biologically plausible because the drink contains antioxidants and compounds which combat insulin resistance, lower inflammation and improve liver function.
“If you like to drink coffee, drink up. If you’re not a coffee drinker, then you need to consider if you should start,” said Dr Veronica Setiawan, associate professor of preventative medicine at USC. “Coffee contains a lot of antioxidants and phenolic compounds that
play an important role in cancer prevention. Although this study does not show causation or point to what chemicals may have this ‘elixir effect’, it is clear that coffee can be incorporated into a healthy diet and lifestyle.”
Coffee is one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages, and Britons drink 55 million cups a day, according to the British Coffee Association.
For the Imperial study, researchers analysed data from more than half a million people aged 35 or over from 10 EU countries. After 16 years, almost 42,000 had died from a range of conditions including cancer, circulatory diseases, heart failure and stroke.
After taking into account lifestyle factors, the researchers found that the group with the highest consumption of coffee had a lower risk for all causes of death. Men who drank at least two and a half cups a day reduced their risk by 12 per cent and women by 7 per cent.
Coffee also cut the risk of dying from digestive diseases by 51 per cent for men, and 40 per cent for women, and lowered the risk of death from circulatory disease for women by 22 per cent.
In a subset of 14,000 people, the team analysed metabolic biomarkers and found coffee drinkers had healthier livers and better glucose control.
“Our results suggest that moderate coffee drinking is not detrimental to your health, and that incorporating coffee into your diet could have health benefits,” said the lead study author, Dr Marc Gunter of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
A separate study of 215,000 people by USC found one cup of coffee a day reduced death by 12 per cent for both men and women and three cups reduced risk of dying early by 18 per cent.
Prof Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, said: “This is a very nice paper, but its conclusions will not lead me to recommend people drink more coffee as a way to lessen their risks for heart disease.” Both studies were published in Annals of Internal Medicine.