People who know me well are all too aware that I drink three to four cups of coffee a day. They will likely expect that I'll be putting this Bloomberg news item here...
Daily Coffee Drinkers May Gain Longer Life, U.S. Study Suggests
(17 May)
Coffee may help extend the lives of people who drink it daily, a U.S. study found. Men who drank 2 to 3 cups a day had a 10 per cent chance of outliving those who drank no coffee, while women had a 13 per cent advantage, according to research published 16 May in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the largest to compare coffee drinkers with those who avoid it to determine whether the beverage can delay the risk of dying from ailments such as heart disease, diabetes or respiratory illness, said Neal Freedman, the lead study author.
It is unclear why coffee may be beneficial and more research is needed to study that question, he said.
The results “offer a little bit of reassurance to coffee drinkers who like drinking coffee that it won’t affect health,” said Freedman, an investigator at the NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics in Rockville, Maryland... “It doesn’t seem to increase one’s risk of dying.” Still, “the association between coffee and mortality has been unclear,” he said. “This is an observational study so we don’t know for certain coffee is having a cause and effect.”
About 64 per cent of U.S. adults drink coffee every day and 73 per cent drink it weekly, according to the New York-based National Coffee Association. Americans consume about 3.2 cups of coffee a day, the group said.
The researchers looked at more than 402,000 men and women who were part of the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study and were 50 to 71 years old at the start of the trial. Coffee consumption was assessed one time when the patients entered the trial. Those with cancer, heart disease and stroke were excluded. From 1995 to 2008, 33,731 men and 18,784 women died.
The study found that men who drank 2 to 3 cups a day had a 14 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease, 17 per cent lower risk of dying from respiratory disease, 16 per cent decreased chance of dying from stroke and a 25 per cent lower risk of dying from diabetes than those who drank no coffee.
Women who consumed 2 to 3 cups of coffee a day had a 15 per cent lower chance of dying from heart disease, 21 per cent lower risk of dying from respiratory disease, 7 per cent decreased chance of dying from stroke and a 23 per cent lower risk of dying from diabetes.
In most cases, drinking six or more cups a coffee a day for men and women lowered the risk even further, the study showed.
Coffee wasn’t associated with a lower risk of dying from cancer in women. In men who drank the most coffee, there was a slightly higher chance of dying from cancer, the research reported.
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Moral of the above story?
* If you drink coffee, you may live a little bit longer than someone else who is otherwise your doppleganger;
* The only certainties are still death and taxes... so, drink your (freshly brewed) coffee because of its rich aroma, its exquisite taste, and how it can help you "do it" in the morning -- not because you want to live longer!
* Life is always full of caveats... studies like this merely suggest "correlation", not "causation".
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So, to mangle a famous quote, "Ask not what you can do with coffee, ask what coffee can do for you".
Here's some quotes I found online...
Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven. ~ Jessi Lane Adams
Deja Brew: The feeling that you've had this coffee before. ~ Author Unknown
Be a coffee-drinking individual - espresso yourself! ~ Author Unknown
This coffee tastes like mud! Well, it was ground this morning. ~ Old Vaudeville joke
Black as the devil, Hot as hell,
Pure as an angel, Sweet as love.
~Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee. ~ Carly Simon
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And here's that Carly Simon song (You're So Vain)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHWrudgCc3Q
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