Drink Coffee to Live Longer (for Women)
More excellent news for coffee drinkers: If you consume as many as six cups a day of coffee daily it won’t harm your health and, coffee may even help the heart, particularly in women, scientists have found.
Long-term, regular coffee drinking does not increase your of death and has a number of beneficial effects on health according to Dr. Esther Lopez-Garcia, at the Autonoma University in Madrid, Spain.
Her study is in the June 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Lopez-Garcia noted that the results of her study may only be true only for healthy patients. Patients with any disease or condition should ask their doctor about their risk.
Spanish researchers examined the relationships between coffee consumption and the risk of dying from heart disease, cancer, or any cause in 42,000 men and more than 84,000 women who had taken part in long term health studies. All participants were free of heart disease and cancer prior to the start of the study.
Participants filled out detailed questionnaires every two to four years, which included data regarding their coffee consumption, other eating habits, smoking habits and health information. The scientists examined the frequency of deaths due to any cause, death from heart disease, as well as death due to cancer in patients with a variety of coffee consuming habits. Other risk factors, such as their diet, smoking and body size were noted.
The scientists learned that women who consumed two to three cups of regular caffeinated coffee daily had a 25 percent lower risk of death due to heart disease during a 24 year follow-up (from 1980 to 2004) than non coffee drinkers. These women also had an 18 percent lower chance of dying from other causes than cancer or heart disease compared with non-coffee drinkers.
In men, consuming two to three cups of regular caffeinated coffee daily was neither helpful nor harmful — it was not associated with either an increased or a decreased mortality in the 18 year period, from 1986 to 2004.
Lower mortality was mainly due to a decreased risk for heart attack deaths. No link was found for coffee consumption and cancer deaths. The beneficial effects of coffee did not appear be directly related to caffeine, since those who consumed decaffeinated coffee also had a lower mortality than those who didn’t drink any kind of coffee.
Earlier studies have shown mixed results on the medical effects of coffee. Some studies have found that coffee increased the chances of dying and others not.
Recent studies have shown that coffee consumption lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancers. Coffee also prevented the development of cardiovascular disease,according to Dr. Lopez-Garcia.
The current study is bolstered by the large number of patients as well as the lengthy follow-up.
While the study is interesting, it does have its shortcomings, said Dr. Peter Galier, an internal medicine specialist, former chief of staff at Santa Monica UCLA and Orthopedic Hospital and associate professor of medicine at the University of California Los Angeles’ David Geffen School of Medicine.
Self-reporting is one shortcoming, he said, because people may have under- or over-reported their coffee consumption, for instance.
According to Dr. Peter Galier this study tells us is not so much that coffee is the answer to everything,but that antioxidants found in coffee, could be healthy.
Galier’s advice for patients: if they love coffee, but it makes them jittery, and they can’t sleep, they should adjust it. Look at your symptoms–If decaf is no problem, I wouldn’t put a limit on that.
The study was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
ref: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_65873.html
