The fountain of youth is right in our coffee cups. A new study found a link between drinking coffee and a longer life.
In new research that was presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, researchers found that the more cups of coffee you drink, the lower your risk of dying.
In a 10-year study of 20,000 participants, the people who had four cups of coffee per day had a 64% lower risk of dying during the study than those who never drank coffee. Even controlling for factors like people who put sugar in their coffee or the participants’ gender, diet, or age, the link between caffeine consumption and staying alive remained strong.
Older adults can benefit from drinking coffee
By the way, the Mayo Clinic also says that up to 4 cups of coffee a day is safe for adults.
The link was particularly strong with older adults. Participants who were at least 45 years old and older had a 30% lower risk of mortality when they drank two cups of coffee a day.
The study’s lead author Dr. Adela Navarro suspects that this finding may be because “coffee contains several bioactive compounds with potential beneficial properties.” Those benefits can include anti-inflammatory properties that can protect elderly adults’ immune systems. In fact, increasing your coffee intake has been linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
The Spanish study builds off of previous research that found that we can drink up to four eight-ounce cups of coffee before it’s no longer good for our health. In fact, one study‘s 15-year review of all coffee studies found that “400 mg caffeine/day in healthy adults is not associated with overt, adverse cardiovascular effects, behavioral effects, reproductive and developmental effects, acute effects, or bone status.”
So live long and drink coffee. Immortality may be just one sip away.