Science Update: Is Coffee Truly a "Life Elixir?"
First thing each morning I put on the brew. I love my coffee and I’m as particular about the bean and the brew as many are about fine wine. I prefer a Starbucks Americano (espresso with hot water) but will settle for a cup of dark, rich Sumatra blend or a French Roast.
If you've engaged the riveting pages of Strength for Life, you know I’m totally transparent in my enthusiasm for the caffeinated brown bean.
And when it comes to being a fan of coffee, I’m not alone. With over 1.2 billion cups annually, coffee is the second most popular beverage in the US. And as it turns out that may not be a bad thing at all.. in fact it may be a good thing.
A recently published study shows a correlation between coffee consumption and decreased risk of death. Often times with these sort of large group studies I can see the deeper or more likely correlation—as with the research which supports that "flossing leads to better health and a longer life."
Look at this flossing connection a little deeper you too may start to suspect that it’s not that flossing is causing them to be healthier but rather that people who are more aware of self-care tend to floss more often, and thus they live longer, healthier lives.
So it’s not a cause and effect but in this care I don’t see an obvious hidden correlation.
Certainly there’s some reason why people who drink coffee live longer—maybe it’s simply they are enjoying life a little more and decide it’s worth sticking around for.
What connection do you see?
A study published in the June 2008 Annals of Internal Medicine tracked 129,000 people over two decades. Scientists at the Autonomous University of Madrid and the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that, compared with those who shunned coffee, women drinking four to five cups of “black sunshine” a day were 34 percent less likely to die, and men drinking more than five cups a day were 44 percent less likely to die—of heart disease, that is. (All of them will eventually die of something.)
Not only that; they found that the coffee drinkers were less likely to die prematurely from any cause—women 26 percent less and men 35 percent less.
"The more coffee you drink, the less risk of mortality you have," Esther Lopez-Garcia, Spanish epidemiologist and the study’s leader, told the press. "The general idea is that coffee is good not bad."
Enjoy your morning cup with renewed vigor, figuratively and literally. But also remember, everything in moderation, even moderation.
