Some more coffee here please!
Am sure many of you out there have an unbreakable bond with your cup of coffee. Whether is it sipping a cup of joe with co-workers in the evening or rewarding yourself with a steaming hot pot after crawling out of bed early, many of us just cannot imagine slugging through days before the weekend without our favourite beverage in proximity.
So without further ado, am gonna start with this piece which am sure is gonna make you reach for that mug right now!
According two major studies published earlier this week in the Journal Annals Of Internal Medicine, the century old argument that coffee can reduce the risk of suffering from a host of killers, including heart disease, stroke and liver disease, is proven to be correct.
Moreover, it claims that the benefits increase with each cup drunk- which is another reason to rejoice!
The first study, the largest of its kind, included 450,000 participants from 10 European countries and looked at the correlation between coffee drinking and mortality. Scientists through the study that spanned over 16 years observed that men who drank three or more cups of coffee per day lowered their risk
of death by 18 percent, compared to those who didn’t. For women, the risk was lowered by 8 percent.It also found that in a subset of 14,800 participants, coffee drinkers had better biological markers, such as liver enzymes and glucose control, which can indicate underlying diseases.
The second study which followed 185,855 participants in the US for just over 16 years, found that drinking one cup of coffee per day lowered the risk of death by 12 percent, regardless of ethnicity. Two or three cups lowered the risk by 18 percent.
This study in particular is noteworthy as it focused on American populations of different ethnicities, while most of the previous studies in this direction have focused on people of European descent.
The first study was led by Marc J. Gunter of the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the second was led by Veronica W. Setiawan of the University of Southern California.
Both studies separated smokers from nonsmokers, since smoking is known to reduce lifespan and is linked to various deceases. However, they found that coffee had inverse effects on mortality for smokers too.
Although, it is important that we consider the fact that these studies are observational, meaning they can’t establish cause and effect — no one can say based on this data that drinking more coffee will definitely extend your life. Despite researchers trying to control factors like diet, obesity, and smoking status, it is still possible that people who consumed coffee of the participants were already healthier in some way they didn’t control for.
Meanwhile, Gunter and Setiawan stand a bit more firmly on coffee as a health benefit.
“The takeaway message would be that drinking a couple cups of coffee a day doesn’t do you any harm, and actually, it might be doing you some good,” said Gunter.
“Moderate coffee consumption can be incorporated into a healthy diet and lifestyle,” Setiawan added. “These studies and the previous studies suggest that for a majority of people, there’s no long term harm from drinking coffee.”
Anyho, this theory if indeed proven “strongly”, will make a “latte” people happy!
Oh, wait! I got one more!
It’s a brew-tiful day outside! Have fun!
