The precise link between coffee and longevity is simply not known. Much more research is needed to pin it down. This study is an observational one and given the popularity of coffee it is also a social one. American consumers drank more than 77 billion cups, worth almost $36 billion, in the year to June last year. For 65% of Americans coffee is the drink of choice each day. 73% take some every week. The average consumption is more than 3 cups per day. So are those who don’t drink it, missing out?
The figures came out of a survey of over 400,000 people and just one element in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. The respondents were aged 50 to be 71 years old at the beginning of the trial. Coffee consumption was measured once, as the subjects entered the trial.
Males who take the average number of cups each day had a 14% lower risk of death by heart disease, a 17% lower risk of dying from respiratory disease, a 16% reduced probability of dying of stroke and a 25% improvement in freedom from diabetes. Remember this is when compared to people who drank no coffee at all. The figures for females are 15% for heart disease, 21% for respiratory disease, 7% for stroke and a 23% for diabetes.
Further good news for big coffee fans is that 6 plus cups per day reduced their risk numbers even further. There was little association between coffee consumption and the risks of dying from cancer, although the real coffee addicts among men did have a small increased risk of dying from cancer. This research was paid for by the National Institutes of Health. Be aware of the caveats.
However, because it may not indicate lifelong patterns of coffee drinking and there is no data about the coffee-making processes involved. There are over a thousand different compounds in coffee that may contribute to these health relationships.
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