After years of waffling research, a big study has found coffee drinkers are a little more likely to live longer. Regular or decaf doesn’t matter.
The study of 400,000 people is the largest ever on the issue, and the results should re-assure any coffee lovers who think it’s a guilty pleasure that may do harm.
“Our study suggests that’s really not the case,” said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute.“There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking.”
No one knows why. Coffee contains a thousand things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer.The most widely studied ingredient - caffeine - didn’t play a role in the new study’s results.
Even in the new study, it first seemed that coffee drinkers were more likely to die at any given time.But they also tended to smoke, drink more alcohol, eat more red meat and exercise less than non-coffee-drinkers.
Resources: Bor. S. Luh Food Safety Research Center