Here's some good news for coffee lovers. A new study has found that people who drink three to five cups of coffee a day are less likely to die prematurely from several health issues compared to non-coffee drinkers.
According to a new health study conducted by a team of Harvard University researchers, people who drink moderate amounts of coffee- less than 5 cups a day- have a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, neurological diseases, type 2 diabetes and suicide, reported DailyMail.
The study findings are based on data from three large ongoing studies involving more than 200,000 men and women. The researchers assessed coffee drinking habits of the participants using validated food questionnaires every four years and followed participants for up to 30 years. During the study period, 19,524 women and 12,432 men died from a range of causes.
The analysis also took into account other factors including body mass index, levels of physical activity, alcohol consumption, smoking and diet of the participants. It was found that coffee drinkers were overall less likely to die over the decades than non-drinkers, according to NBCNews.
Interestingly, when the researchers looked at coffee consumption only among non-smokers, they found that those who drank between less than a cup of coffee and three cups a day had 6 percent to 8 percent lower risk of dying than non-coffee drinkers, while those who drank three to five cups and more than five cups had 15 percent and 12 percent lower death rates.
"Bioactive compounds in coffee reduce insulin resistance and systematic inflammation," said Ming Ding, a doctoral student at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.
"They might be responsible for the inverse association between coffee and mortality. However, more studies are needed to investigate the biological mechanisms producing these effects," added Ding.
Ding is the lead author of the study, which has been published online in the journal Circulation.
Notably, the health benefit held true for drinking caffeinated as well as decaffeinated coffee, which suggest that it is not just the caffeine providing the health benefits but possibly the naturally occurring chemical compounds in the coffee beans.
According to the researchers, the study was not designed to show a direct cause and effect relationship between coffee consumption and premature death from illness. So, they suggest that the study findings should be interpreted with caution.
