By
Aria Bendix
-
NBC News
Contrary to popular myth, giving up coffee most likely won't improve your health.
In fact, the opposite may be true: Years of research suggest that drinking coffee is linked to a lower risk of death.
A publication in the scientific journal Annals of Internal Medicine on Monday contributed to that growing consensus in the medical community.
The study looked at some 120,000 people in the UK who regularly drank coffee with and without sugar for seven years
.
The findings suggest that those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups a day had a lower risk of death over those seven years than those who didn't drink coffee, even if they added a teaspoon of sugar, not artificial sweetener, to each cup.
Overall, people who drank coffee without sugar were 16% to 21% less likely to die during the study period than people who drank no coffee at all, the results showed.
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But the researchers didn't determine causality, so they couldn't establish whether coffee is directly responsible for the improvement in health.
"Biologically, it's plausible that coffee may actually confer some direct health benefits," said Dr. Christina Wee, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Wee edited the study and wrote an accompanying opinion on the results.
But he added:
"We cannot say with certainty that it is coffee consumption
per se
that leads to a lower risk of mortality
. "
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It is possible, for example, that people who drink coffee on a daily basis are wealthier and therefore more likely to have better medical care or more time for leisure or physical activity than people who do not drink coffee, which which could reduce your mortality risk.
A spoonful of sugar does not negate the benefits of coffee
Participants in the new study were about 56 years old, on average, and were recruited between 2006 and 2010. The researchers took into account factors such as diet, smoking, socioeconomic status, pre-existing health problems and exposure to air pollution.
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The results suggested that people who drank sweetened coffee were 29% to 31% less likely to die than those who didn't drink coffee, a slightly greater risk reduction than that seen among people who drank unsweetened coffee, although in the same range.
The study found inconclusive results for people who drank coffee with artificial sweeteners;
it also didn't specifically look at people who added milk or cream.
Wee said
the results do not suggest that adding sugar to coffee is healthier than drinking it plain
.
File image of a person pouring a cup of coffee. Juanma Hache / Getty Images
“My biggest caution is not to equate this with 'Oh, I can drink any type of high-calorie coffee,' because there are other studies that clearly show that adding sugar and high levels of empty calories is not good for you.
So just do things in moderation,” she warned.
"What this study is really saying is that adding a little bit of sugar doesn't eliminate all of the potential health benefits that coffee might have," Wee explained.
"Not harmful, maybe a bit beneficial"
The association between coffee consumption and a lower risk of death is well established: A 2019 analysis found that drinking two to four cups a day reduced a person's risk of death relative to people who didn't drink coffee.
Another analysis suggested that consuming three to four cups a day lowered the risk of dying from heart disease compared to not consuming coffee.
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The same research revealed that coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of Parkinson's disease, chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.
But experts haven't determined why coffee is associated with those benefits.
Some research has suggested that the antioxidants in coffee might reduce inflammation and lower disease risk, but the connection is far from certain.
And other research has linked coffee to some negative health effects.
A 2015 review found that drinking one to four cups a day was associated with an increased risk of blood clots, but the opposite was true among people who drank five or more cups a day.
A review from last year, meanwhile, found that boiled coffee was correlated with increased "bad" cholesterol levels, while filtered coffee did not have the same effect.
Caffeine can also increase blood pressure in the short term.
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Recent research is far from definitive, Wee said.
He also pointed out that some lifestyle factors associated with coffee consumption can be unhealthy: "You work long hours and need to be awake all the time, or you're stressed and have deadlines."
So, Wee said, "I'm more confident that we can say that drinking coffee is probably not harmful, maybe a little bit beneficial."
"If you don't like coffee, I wouldn't force you to like it," he added.