Techotic

Researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid have studied 129,000 men and women over two decades and found that people who drink more than five cups of coffee a day every day were less likely to die of heart disease than those that don’t drink coffee at all.

The researchers concluded that men who drank 4-5 cups a day were 44% less likely to die of heart disease, while 34% of women who had the same amount of coffee as men were also less likely to die.

The new study is not the first to connect coffee drinking with good health. Over the years, other research has linked coffee consumption with lower rates of heart attack, liver cancer and diabetes.

Beginning in 1980, the researchers collected coffee consumption statistics for 86,214 women enrolled in a study of nurses’ health. And in 1986 they began collecting data for 41,736 men involved in a follow-up study of health professionals.

When Lopez-Garcia’s team ended their analysis in 2004, 6,888 men and 11,095 women had died, many from cardiovascular disease.

For both groups, coffee seemed to give a health boost. After accounting for other factors such as smoking and obesity, the researchers found that women who drank four to five cups of coffee per day were 26% less likely to die from any cause. Men who put down more than five cups of coffee per day were 35% less likely to die.

“The more coffee you drink the less risk of mortality you have,” Lopez-Garcia says.

However, her team noticed an even more dramatic effect in deaths caused by cardiovascular disease. She speculates that anti-inflammatory compounds found in coffee may be responsible for its apparent health benefits.

This is in spite of high levels of caffeine, which might increase the chances of suffering a heart attack by raising blood pressure. “Our hypothesis is that caffeine has a short term effect, but in the longer term, [other aspects of coffee are] more important,” she says.

Other studies have, however, shown just the opposite. In 2007, Sofi analysed more than 20 studies of health and coffee drinking and found little consensus.

[via new scientist]