Drinking coffee is associated with lower death risk

Washington DC : Coffee lovers, here is a good news for you!

Drinking three to four cups of coffee a day can lead to a lower death risk and getting a heart disease compared with drinking no coffee. Coffee drinking is also associated with a lower risk of few cancers, diabetes, liver disease and dementia.

Researchers say, "Drinking coffee is more likely to benefit health than harm it."

However, they also said that drinking coffee in pregnancy might be associated with harms, and might be linked to a very small increased risk of fractures in women.

To better understand the effects of the most commonly consumed beverage on health, the research reviewed aggregated data from 201 studies that also included clinical trials across all countries.

Deriving from the results, coffee was not only associated with a lower risk of death but also with lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver.

The researchers concluded that coffee drinking "seems safe within usual patterns of consumption, except during pregnancy and in women at increased risk of fracture."

However, Eliseo Guallar of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said, "Doctors should not recommend drinking coffee to prevent disease - and people should not start drinking coffee for health reasons as there is substantial uncertainty about the effects of higher levels of intake."

"Finally, coffee is often consumed with products rich in refined sugars and unhealthy fats, and these may independently contribute to adverse health outcomes," he added.

However, even with these limitations, "moderate coffee consumption seems remarkably safe, and it can be incorporated as part of a healthy diet by most of the adult population," he concludes.

The results were published in THE BMJ (British Medical Journal).