NIH: Drinking Coffee Helps You Live LongerWednesday, 20 Feb 2013 04:52 PM By Nick Tate Drinking coffee can not only boost your energy but also your longevity. That’s the key finding of a new federal health study of nearly a half-million coffee drinkers that found those who regularly enjoy a cup of java live longer than those who don’t.
The National Institutes of Health study, published recently in
the New England Journal of Medicine, indicated that caffeinated
and decaf coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart
disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents,
diabetes, and infections.
In an interview published this week in the Journal of Caffeine
Research, Neal Freedman — with the Division of Cancer
Epidemiology and Genetics at the NIH National Cancer Institute —
said his study is among the most comprehensive to date of the
health benefits of coffee and has significant implications for
java junkies. Researchers tracked 500,000 U.S. men and women —
ages 50 to 71, all members of the American Association of
Retired Persons — for about 12 years.
Not only did the results show a clear association between coffee
and longevity, Freedman said, but they also indicated people who
drank the most coffee tended to have greatest health benefits.
“What we found was that over the course of follow-up, there was
an inverse association between coffee drinking and the risk of
death overall and with a number of different causes as well,”
said Freedman.
“The association was similar for men and women, and tended to
get stronger as participants drank more coffee, though the
result was very similar for those who drank two or three cups
per day and those who drank more than that. The top category we
had was six or more cups per day. And by cup, I mean a U.S.
8-ounce cup. This is what we found.”
For the study, Freedman and his colleagues examined
questionnaires filled out by older Americans in 1995-1996, which
detailed their coffee drinking habits, and then tracked the
participants until the date they died or Dec. 31, 2008,
whichever came first.
The results showed men and women who consumed three or more cups
of coffee per day had about a 10 percent lower risk of death
than non-drinkers from a wide variety of causes. Coffee drinking
was not associated with cancer mortality among women, but there
was a slight but marginally significant association of heavier
coffee intake with increased risk of cancer death among men.
Freedman noted information was not available on how the coffee
was prepared (espresso, boiled, filtered, etc.), but said it’s
possible that preparation methods may affect the levels of any
protective components in coffee.
He added that scientists don’t yet know which of the hundreds of
compounds in coffee may be responsible for the health benefits
the caffeine bean provides.
“We do not really know the mechanism of coffee's action,” he
explained. “It is possible that coffee affects blood pressure,
but then also many other mechanisms … might affect
cardiovascular disease. We do not really have mechanistic data
about the different compounds in coffee and what they do …It is
possible that different compounds in the coffee are important.”
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Jack E. James, editor of the Journal of Caffeine Research, said
Freedman’s research suggests a need for additional studies to
determine the culprit responsible for coffee’s health-boosting
properties.
"Given the near-universal daily consumption of caffeine,
Freedman's research underscores the urgent need for randomized
controlled trials to identify which components of coffee and
other caffeine beverages benefit or harm consumers, under what
circumstances, and in relation to which health outcomes," he
said.
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