The bitterly satisfying hot cup of java that many Americans consume every morning just got a huge endorsement from researchers at the National Cancer Institute who reported that coffee drinkers have less risk of dying of certain diseases than those who shy from the beverage.
The study, which was published in the May 17 edition of New England Journal of Medicine, states that coffee—caffeinated or decaffeinated—may help with certain maladies.
“Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, although the association was not seen for cancer,” according to the study.
But researchers did note that this doesn’t actually mean coffee drinkers will live longer.
Nevertheless, this newly released study did add some satisfaction for some coffee-lovers while they sipped their first freshly brewed coffee in the morning.
And don’t stop at just one cup…or two, researchers said. People who drink three or more cups of coffee per day had approximately 10 percent lower risk of death, than those who refrain from this guilty pleasure.
“We found coffee consumption to be associated with lower risk of death overall, and of death from a number of different causes,’’ said Neal Freedman, Ph.D., Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the NCI. “Although we cannot infer a causal relationship between coffee drinking and lower risk of death, we believe these results do provide some reassurance that coffee drinking does not adversely affect health.”
Researchers examined 400,000 men and women between the ages of 50 to 71.
The study did provide one warning: “The investigators caution that coffee intake was assessed by self-report at a single time point and therefore might not reflect long-term patterns of intake.”
