Drink at least 4 cups of coffee daily for a longer life, study finds

BARCELONA — Turns out drinking a lot of coffee won’t just keep you awake longer, it may keep you alive longer too. A new study finds that drinking at least four cups of coffee a daily can significantly lower your risk of dying.

Spanish researchers sought to determine whether people who drank notably more coffee each day were at any greater risk of death than those who don’t enjoy a cup of java that often.

Cup of coffee
A new study finds that people who drink at least four cups of coffee a day are 64 percent less likely to die from any cause.

The research team examined 19,896 participants of a longterm research project that monitored the cardiovascular health of Spanish university graduates every two years since 1999. Participants, who were about 38 years old on average at the beginning of the project, completed a questionnaire that detailed their coffee consumption habits, physical measurements, lifestyle and sociodemographic characteristics, and health conditions that occurred prior to research.

Over a 10-year period during the study, 337 participants had died. Researchers found that the participants who consumed more than four cups of coffee a day had a 64% lower risk of death from any cause, compared to those who rarely, if ever, consumed the beverage. What’s more, they determined a 22% lower risk for each additional two cups consumed per day.

The authors also looked at different factors that may have played a role between coffee consumption and mortality, such as age, sex, or dietary habits. They found that people who were at least 45 years old and consumed at least two cups of coffee daily (additionally) had a 30% lower risk of mortality. For younger participants, the relation of the addition was not that much.

“We found an inverse association between drinking coffee and the risk of all-cause mortality, particularly in people aged 45 years and above. This may be due to a stronger protective association among older participants,” says Dr. Adela Navarro, a cardiologist at Hospital de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, in a news release by the European Society of Cardiology.

Either way, the results are exciting for anyone who worries that their coffee addiction is unhealthy.

“Our findings suggest that drinking four cups of coffee each day can be part of a healthy diet in healthy people,” says Navarro.

This study’s findings were published in the European Heart Journal.

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