The odds of dying are always high, but yet another paper expounding coffee’s magical benefits says it might be able to help you fight them. A study presented yesterday at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting found that people who drink two to four cups a day have a lower risk of mortality. Researchers in Spain followed a cohort of nearly 20,000 for a decade; according to their findings, participants who consumed two cups of coffee per day were 22 percent less likely to die than people who never drank coffee. Meanwhile, individuals who had at least four cups were 64 percent less likely. The effects were even greater for people 45 and up; their risk of mortality dropped 30 percent after just two cups per day.
The authors note several factors come into play — this was just an observational study, they tried to account for age, sex, diet, etc., but who knows — so this is just a mere correlation. Still, it’s just one of many studies suggesting coffee is, in a word, amazing, and it set off a whirlwind of positive headlines, from “Four Cups of Coffee a Day Is Okay” (nothing gets those Australians too excited) to “Four Cups of Coffee a Day Can Increase Your Lifespan,” and straight-up “The More Coffee You Drink, the Longer You Will Live.”
It’s the first study to connect drinking coffee to living longer in a Mediterranean country. Coffee’s health effects still somewhat baffle scientists, but there’s general consensus that it has compounds (caffeine, diterpenes, antioxidants) that help reduce inflammation and provide other protective functions in the body and brain.
That said, serious coffee fiends may also want to watch out — another study today found that coffee might be making you fat, which could be a real downside of longer life.
