May 31, 2022 – Coffee lovers, rejoice. Your morning ritual can lead to a longer life and a tablespoon of sugar could sweeten the supply, according to a recent study.
Among more than 170,000 people in the UK, those who drank two to four cups of coffee a day, with or without sugar, had a lower death rate than those who did not drink coffee, said lead author Dan Liu. MD, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangdong, China.
“Previous observational studies have suggested an association between coffee intake and reduced risk of death, but did not distinguish between coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners and coffee consumed without,” wrote Liu and colleagues. in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
For more information, the researchers turned to the UK Biobank, which recruited nearly half a million people between 2006 and 2010 to participate in questionnaires, interviews, physical measurements and medical tests.
Of this group, 171,616 of them completed at least one dietary questionnaire and met the criteria for the study of coffee.
The results showed that 55.4% of them drank coffee without any sweetener, 14.3% drank coffee with sugar, 6.1% drank coffee with artificial sweetener and 24.2% did not drink have no coffee. Coffee drinkers were classified into groups based on how many cups of coffee they drank per day.
Coffee drinkers were significantly less likely to die
Over the course of about 7 years, 3,177 of those studied died, including 1,725 from cancer and 628 from heart disease.
After considering other things that could affect their risk of death, such as lifestyle choices, the researchers found that coffee drinkers were significantly less likely to die from any cause, heart disease, or cancer than those who did not drink coffee at all.
This benefit was observed in coffee types, including ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee. The protective effects of coffee were greater in people who drank about two or four cups a day, among which the probability of dying was about 30% less, regardless of whether they added sugar to the coffee.
People who drank coffee with artificial sweeteners did not live significantly longer than those who did not drink any coffee.
Experts call for caution despite new findings
Although the results of the study suggest that adding sugar did not eliminate the health benefits of coffee, Liu and her colleagues still warned against sugary drinks, due to the widely known links between drinking and drinking. sugar and ill health.
Estefanía Toledo, MD, PhD, from the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra in Spain, offered a similar proposal.
Toledo, who previously published a study showing a link between coffee and prolonged survival, says moderate coffee consumption has been “repeatedly” associated with lower rates of “various chronic diseases” and death, but not yet. there is enough evidence to recommend coffee to those who do not yet drink it.
More long-term research is needed, he says, ideally with studies comparing changes in coffee consumption and health outcomes over time.