Live Longer, Drink Coffee

The positive studies on coffee are piling up, and for once science is telling us that something we already love is good for us. It's official, coffee is a health food. Here's what we know so far:
  • Heavy coffee drinkers (6 cups per day) see a 33 percent reduction in diabetes diagnoses.
  • Coffee drinkers are less likely to get heart disease or have strokes.
  • They're also less likely to get Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
  • Liver cancers, kidney disease, fatty livers, and even depression are also more easily avoided by coffee drinkers.
Add all this up and various studies have concluded that coffee drinkers live 6 to 24 percent longer than non-coffee drinkers.

The New Study

A new long-term study of 215,000 people reinforces this. In short, coffee lovers who had a cup per day were 12 percent less likely to die. Drink two or three cups and you get an 18 percent reduced chance of death.
Here's what interesting about this new study. First, it didn't seem to matter how the coffee drinkers liked their java. Caffeinated coffee and soul-sucking decaffeinated coffee both improved overall health. And most of the coffee drinkers studied weren't choosing organic or anything fancy.
What's more, this study was multiethnic: African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Latinos and Vanilla-Americans all benefited from coffee.

But What's The VERY Best Coffee?

You want to be anal about this, huh? Okay, according to another study, light roast coffee is better than medium, dark, and French roasts.
Why? The roasting process reduces the amount of good stuff, like the antioxidant, chlorogenic acid. The lighter the roast, the shorter the roasting time, the less exposure to air, and the more chlorogenic acid survives. That means better oxidation protection and better protection against that serial killer known as chronic inflammation.

Related:  How to Supercharge Your Coffee

Related:  3 Rules for Lifters Who Love Coffee

References

  1. Marc J. Gunter et al. Coffee Drinking and Mortality in 10 European Countries: A Multinational Cohort Study. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017 DOI: 10.7326/M16-2945
  2. Song-Yi Park et al. Association of Coffee Consumption With Total and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Nonwhite Populations. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017 DOI: 10.7326/M16-2472
  3. Jung Soohan, Kim Min Hyung, Park Jae Hee, Jeong Yoonhwa, and Ko Kwang Suk. Cellular Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Coffee Extracts with Different Roasting Levels, Journal of Medicinal Food. June 2017, 20(6): 626-635