There is mounting evidence that drinking coffee is good for one’s health. That is a question that will definitely split opinions right down the middle, taking into consideration how it is just about as sensitive as whether you prefer dogs to cats – or other sensitive issues such as religion and politics.
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Compared with individuals who did not drink coffee, those who consumed four to five cups daily had the lowest risk of death from various causes, including diabetes, heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and suicide.
It is important to note that people who drank five cups of coffee a day had the lowest death risk.
Doctor Erikka Loftfield, the lead author of the recently published study and working with the National Cancer Institute of Rockville, Maryland explained that the findings are supported by the composition of coffee.
It appears that the risks of getting these diseases were lowering as the participants drank more coffee.
The researchers used data from a previous study on 90,317 adults without cancer or history of cardiovascular disease who were followed from 1998 through 2009. After adjusting for several factors-including smoking-the researchers found that those who drank more coffee could be determined to be at a lower risk for death than those who did not drink coffee. This applied to the people who drank decaf coffee as well. It seems that the beverage could reduce the risk for some types of cancer and increase it for others.
By the end of the study, 8,700 participants had died.
Additionally, the researchers found that consuming up to five cups of coffee daily – the equivalent to 400 mg of caffeine – was not linked to any long-term health risks. The researchers warn, however, that people with colon cancer should not suddenly start drinking large amounts of coffee.
“Although coffee drinking has also been inversely associated with incidence of certain cancers, like liver, in epidemiological studies, we did not observe an association between coffee and overall cancer mortality”, Loftfield said.
“The study also shows that those who drank at least two cups of coffee a day had smaller tumors and a lower proportion of hormone-dependent tumors”.
“There is an accumulating number of studies of very high quality that show that people who drink more coffee tend to have better health outcomes”, said Dr. Marc J. Gunter of Imperial College London, who was not part of the new study.
The study doesn’t prove that coffee extends life. Although drinking coffee won’t necessarily make you live a long healthy life, it might help you dodge some cancer or cardiovascular bullets so why not make everything you can to help reduce the risks for such health problems.
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There are many coffee lovers in the world and there are, of course many coffee haters.
