Drinking Coffee Linked to Living Longer, Studies Find

Two large, separate studies, both published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, have found that drinking more coffee is linked to a lower risk of death, according to IFLScience.com.

The first study was conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and Imperial College London examined the relationship between coffee consumption and mortality in 10 different European countries. There were 521,330 participants in total – and is currently the largest of its kind. 

“We found that higher coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause, and specifically for circulatory diseases, and digestive diseases,” Dr. Marc Gunter said in a statement. “Importantly, these results were similar across all of the 10 European countries, with variable coffee drinking habits and customs. Our study also offers important insights into the possible mechanisms for the beneficial health effects of coffee.”

The second study was conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California and focused on a smaller, but more culturally diverse area, examining 185,855 African Americans, Native Hawaiians, Japanese Americans, Latinos and whites ages 45-75 living in Hawaii and Los Angeles, CA. 

This study found that people who drank one cup of coffee a were 12% less likely to die, and drinking two to three cups of coffee a day increased this to 18%. Lead author Veronica Setiawan believes that the antioxidants and phenolic compounds contained in coffee “play an important role in cancer prevention,” she said. 

However, at this time, additional studies need to be done to identify exactly what causes this link.