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COFFEE: MAY EXTEND YOUR LIFE





That morning cup of black coffee might be doing a lot more than just helping you survive your commute—it could actually help you live longer. That’s according to a study out of Tufts University, where researchers dug through health data from nearly 46,000 Americans. The big takeaway? People who sipped one to three cups of caffeinated coffee each day were less likely to die from any cause—especially anything heart-related—compared to those who skipped coffee altogether. There’s a twist, though: pile on the sugar and cream, and you might lose those perks.

Published in The Journal of Nutrition, the study zoomed in on how coffee drinking, plus the amount of sweetener and saturated fat people added, related to their risk of dying. Folks who stuck to black coffee—or kept the sugar and cream to a minimum—saw a 14% drop in their overall risk of death. But if you loaded up your mug with sugar or heavy cream? Those benefits pretty much vanished.

“Coffee is everywhere, so figuring out exactly how it affects our health really matters,” says Fang Fang Zhang, the study’s senior author and a professor at Tufts. Her team’s findings suggest that if you want the health boost, keep the sweet stuff in check.

The researchers pored over nine cycles of the massive National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), covering nearly two decades. They tracked what types of coffee people drank (caffeinated or decaf) and how much sugar and saturated fat went into each cup. “Low” sugar meant under 2.5 grams per 8-ounce cup, and “low” saturated fat was a single gram or less.

Turns out, just one cup of coffee each day was linked to a 16% lower risk of dying from any cause. If you upped it to two or three cups, that number inched up to 17%. But downing more than that? No extra benefit, and any heart-helping effect seemed to fade away. And for anyone worried about cancer, there wasn’t any notable link between coffee drinking and cancer deaths.

What sets this research apart is how it breaks down the impact of what people actually put in their coffee—a detail most earlier studies skipped. “Most previous research hasn’t looked at how additives change the relationship between coffee and mortality risk,” says lead author Bingjie Zhou, who recently earned her Ph.D. from Tufts.

The results back up what nutrition experts have said for years: watch the sugar and saturated fat. Of course, the study isn’t perfect. It relied on people remembering and honestly reporting what they ate and drank, which can be hit-or-miss. And because fewer people drank decaf, the team couldn’t say much about its effects.

Alongside Zhang and Zhou, the research team included Yongyi Pan, Lu Wang, and Mengyuan Ruan—all with ties to Tufts. Funding came from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Curious for more? You can check out all the details in The Journal of Nutrition.



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