Coffee lovers will now have more reasons to love coffee as a new study finds that drinking the beverage regularly improves longevity.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health and appeared in the journal Circulation on Nov. 12.
The study found that individuals who observe a daily habit of coffee, particularly drinking three to five cups a day have less chances of dying prematurely from common diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.
The large study comprised of groups of people who are part of a national study. To arrive at their findings, researchers surveyed a total of more than 200,000 participants asking them about their coffee consumption and followed them every four years for 30 years.
According to their findings, drinking one to five cups of coffee per day lowers the risk of death compared to drinking fewer cups of coffee per day. The link between lowered risk of death and coffee intake was more evident in non-smokers.
Although the latest findings may be of good news to coffee lovers, the researchers admitted that results based on self-reports are not totally reliable.
The study was not done to prove that reduced death risk is caused by regular consumption of the beverage, but to show that the link that exists between them, which adds evidence to the previous coffee studies.
According to study author Ming Ding in a report from Agence France-Presse (AFP), coffee may also have other "bioactive compounds" that made them arrive at their findings. Ding also emphasized that more studies are needed to find out what other components may be contributing to the association of coffee consumption and lowered death risk.
After all, people react differently to coffee, according to Andrew Maynard, who told NPR. Maynard, an Arizona State University professor who studies risk assessment, told the outlet that the coffee benefits explained in the study are only "small."
