It found a lower risk of liver disease and some cancers in coffee drinkers, and a lower risk of dying from stroke – but researchers could not prove coffee was the cause.

Too much coffee during pregnancy could be harmful, the review confirmed.

Experts said people should not start drinking coffee for health reasons.

The University of Southampton researchers collected data on the impact of coffee on all aspects of the human body, taking into account more than 200 studies – most of which were observational.

Compared with non-coffee drinkers, those who drank about three cups of coffee a day appeared to reduce their risk of getting heart problems or dying from them.

The strongest benefits of coffee consumption were seen in reduced risks of liver disease, including cancer.

But Prof Paul Roderick, co-author of the study, from the faculty of medicine at University of Southampton, said the review could not say if coffee intake had made the difference.

“Factors such as age, whether people smoked or not and how much exercise they took could all have had an effect,” he said.

Everything in moderation, including coffee

The findings back up other recent reviews and studies of coffee drinking so, overall, his message on coffee was reassuring.

“There is a balance of risks in life, and the benefits of moderate consumption of coffee seem to outweigh the risks,” he said.

The NHS recommends pregnant women have no more than 200mg of caffeine a day – two mugs of instant coffee – because too much can increase the risk of miscarriage.

This review suggests women at risk of fractures should also cut back on coffee.

For other adults, moderate caffeine intake equates to 400mg or less per day – or three to four cups of coffee – but that isn’t the only drink (or food) to bear in mind.

How much caffeine in my drink?

one mug of filter coffee: 140mg
one mug of instant coffee: 100mg
one mug of tea: 75mg
one can of cola: 40mg
one 250ml can of energy drink: up to 80mg
bar of plain chocolate: less than 25mg
bar of milk chocolate: less than 10mg

The researchers say coffee drinkers should stick to “healthy coffees” – which avoid extra sugar, milk or cream, or a fatty snack on the side.

And they are calling for rigorous clinical trials on coffee intake to find out more about the potential benefits to health.

Presentational grey line

At present, the researchers said pinning down exactly how coffee might have a positive impact on health was “difficult” but it could be down to the effects of anti-oxidants and anti-fibrotics, which prevent or slow damage to cells in the body.

Commenting on the BMJ review, Eliseo Guallar, from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said there was still uncertainty about the effects of higher levels of coffee intake.

But he added: “Moderate coffee consumption seems remarkably safe, and it can be incorporated as part of a healthy diet by most of the adult population.”

People drinking coffee and croissantsImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Best not to opt for sticky, sweet snacks with your espresso

Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, said coffee drinkers may be healthier people to start with – and that could skew the findings.

“Coffee is known to cause headaches in some people and it also increases the urge to go to the toilet – some people chose not to drink coffee for these reasons.

“Patients with abnormal heart rhythms are often advised to drink de-caffeinated coffee. Caffeine also acutely increases blood pressure, albeit transiently. ”

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Source: BBC

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The research, published in the journal the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggests an extra cup of coffee could lengthen a person’s lifespan – even if it is decaffeinated.

But sceptical experts point out it is impossible to say for sure that it is the coffee that is having a protective effect, rather than say, a more healthy lifestyle in coffee drinkers.

They say there is no need to reach for that extra cup of coffee just yet.

What does the new study claim?

Researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer and Imperial College London say they have found that drinking more coffee is linked to a lower risk of death – particularly for heart diseases and diseases of the gut.

They came to their conclusions after analysing data of healthy people over the age of 35 from 10 EU countries.

They asked them once at the beginning of the study how much coffee they tended to drink and then looked at deaths over an average of 16 years.

Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, from the University of Cambridge, analyses the public understanding of risk and says that if the estimated reductions in death really were down to coffee, then an extra cup of coffee every day would extend the life of a man by around three months and a woman by around a month on average.

But despite the sheer scale of the study, it is by no means perfect and cannot prove that coffee beans are the magic ingredient.

Why you do not need to rush out and buy more coffee just yet

Frustratingly for coffee fiends, the findings really are not as clear-cut as they might first seem.

That’s because the study could not take every factor into account – clouding how certain one can be about coffee’s effects.

For example, it did not look at how much coffee drinkers earned in comparison with non-coffee drinkers. It might be that people who can afford three cups of coffee a day are richer and that extra money, in some way, helps protect their health.

It might be that people who drank three cups of coffee a day spent more time socialising and that in turn may have boosted their wellbeing.

And even if they were to be certain it was the coffee that was responsible, not every risk improved.

The researchers found higher coffee-drinking was linked to a higher rate of ovarian cancer in women, for example.

And although the paper looked at a lot of people, the researchers excluded anyone who had diabetes, heart attacks or strokes at the beginning of the study.

So it doesn’t tell us much about the risks or benefits of drinking coffee if people are unwell.

It is also possible some of those people became unwell while having their regular brews.

Is coffee good for you?

Previous studies have shown conflicting and often contradictory results.

For many people, experience suggests that drinks containing caffeine can temporarily make us feel more alert.

But caffeine affects some people more than others, and the effects can vary from person to person.

NHS experts have not set limits for coffee in the general population but they do say that pregnant women should avoid drinking more than 200mg of caffeine a day.

They say this is because coffee might increase the chance of the baby being born too small. Too much caffeine may also increase the risk of miscarriage.

And, of course, caffeine is not just found in coffee.

The 200mg caffeine limit could be reached by having two mugs of tea and a can of cola, for example, or two cups of instant coffee.

There was also recently the case of a US teen who, it’s thought, may have died from drinking too many caffeinated drinks too quickly.

How could we ever be sure whether coffee makes you live longer?

The most rigorous scientific way to be certain that coffee could make you live longer would be to force thousands of people all over the world to drink it regularly while preventing many thousands of otherwise similar people from ever drinking coffee.

Scientists would then have to monitor every other aspect of their life – what else they ate and drank, how much they earned, how much exercise they did, for example.

That’s a study that is never likely to take place.

So for now, some experts say, instead of putting all your bets on coffee being good for you, you could instead do something that has been proven to extend life – take a brisk, 20-minute walk to the nearest coffee shop – whether you order a cup or not.

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Source: BBC

The post Coffee drinkers live longer – perhaps appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.