Coffee turned out to be a panacea

For many years, experts have been arguing about the supposed benefits or harms of coffee, which many people continue to drink no matter what. Epidemiology researchers from the National Cancer Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, working under the guidance of Dr. Rashmi Sinha, have obtained results that can inspire lovers of this drink.

They analyzed data provided by 402,260 men and women who filled out a detailed questionnaire, one of the subsections of which concerned coffee consumption, as part of a medical study conducted in the mid-90s of the last century. People who were diagnosed with cancer, heart disease and other serious diseases at the time of filling out the questionnaire were excluded from this population. The mortality of the remaining participants was analyzed until 2008. When processing the data, the researchers took into account the differences between the participants in the following parameters: body mass index; smoking; alcohol consumption, different types of meat, vitamins, fruits and vegetables.

During the follow-up period, the median of which was 13.6 years, the risk of death for people who drank at least two cups of coffee a day was 10-16% less than for people who did not drink coffee at all. One cup of coffee a day did not have such a pronounced positive effect. An interesting fact is that coffee turned out to be more useful for the female body than for the male. So, six cups of coffee a day reduced the risk of female mortality by 15%, while for men this figure was only 10%.

Data analysis showed that 2 or more cups of coffee a day provide some protection from death due to heart and respiratory diseases, as well as diabetes, while 4 or more cups a day - from death due to stroke and infectious diseases.

It turned out that the secret of coffee in this case is not caffeine at all. Decaffeinated coffee had almost the same positive effect on longevity as regular coffee. Experts note that, in addition to caffeine, coffee contains a huge amount of chemically active components, and, given that the positive effects of its use are not limited to any particular disease, coffee, apparently, simultaneously affects many different mechanisms.

And one more touch: this is the first large–scale study of the relationship between coffee consumption and health, carried out at the expense of the state, and not coffee producers and sellers :)

Article by Neal D. Freedman et al. The Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the National Cancer Institute:
NIH study finds that coffee drinkers have lower risk of death. 

18.05.2012