Longer Life with Coffee

There are many known health benefits from regular and healthy organic coffee. But, do you get a longer life with coffee? That may, in fact, be the case. The Washington Post reports on a New England Journal of Medicine report noting that coffee can lengthen your life!

The headlines about coffee’s impact on your health seem to change as quickly as the time it takes to drink a cup. Should you savor every drop or try to cut down? Here’s what we know right now:

True, coffee drinkers are more likely than nondrinkers to smoke, eat red meat, skimp on exercise and have other life-shortening habits, according to a large 2012 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

But even after adjusting for such factors, they found that people age 50 to 71 who drank at least one cup of coffee per day had a lower risk than nondrinkers of dying from diabetes, heart disease or other health problems when followed for more than a decade. That may be due to beneficial compounds in coffee such as antioxidants – which might ward off disease – and not caffeine. Decaf drinkers had the same results.

We already knew that people who drink three cups of coffee a day or more have half the risk of developing Type II Diabetes compared to folks who do not drink coffee. Now researchers have demonstrated that the risk of dying from diabetes is also reduced in coffee drinkers.

Happiness with Coffee

Drinking coffee reduces the risk of depression.

Drinking coffee reduces the risk of depression according to recently published research. An article published in volume 171 of the Archives of Internal Medicine by a team of Harvard researchers showed a lower incidence of depression in women who reported drinking at least four cups of coffee a day as compared to women who reported drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee or less each day. The difference was a twenty percent reduction in incidence of new depression in the high end coffee drinkers. The study included 50,000 women who were free of depression at the start of the study and subjects were followed over a decade. The same researcher demonstrated years ago that male coffee drinkers (five cups a day) have a reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease.

Not only do you get a longer life with coffee buy you get to be happier as well.

But Is Coffee Addicting?

Fox News asks if drinking too much coffee is addicting or harming your health.

Ever wonder what gives you that jolt moments after your first sip? It’s a surge of cortisol and adrenaline. Coffee taps your adrenals to release these stress hormones, so by drinking a cup of java (or a can of soda, as any type of caffeine does this) you are triggering the same physical response your body would have to an imminent danger.

As coffee lovers know, this rush makes you more focused and can become addictive. While consuming coffee can be great before a job interview or high-stakes presentation, daily use can put you into a chronically high-cortisol state. In fact, a study out of the University of Oklahoma revealed that drinking coffee while under even mild stress causes cortisol levels to rise higher and stay high- long past the stressful event.

The article goes on to discuss other options other than coffee. But, considering that you get a longer life with coffee and a happier one as well, what is the point! Drink coffee. Enjoy coffee. Live long and be happy!




Leave a Reply