Coffee May Extend Your Life

For all of the coffee aficionados like myself, this is the study we have hoped for.

(WebMD) Coffee drinkers, rejoice. While you might be using it for a "pick-me-up," coffee may also be extending your life.Whether you are on a first-name basis with your barista or simply refueling from the office coffee pot during the day, new research suggests that drinking coffee, even in large amounts, might help you live longer.

Coffee drinkers in the study had slightly lower death rates than non-coffee drinkers over time, whether their drink of choice had caffeine or not.The findings do not prove that coffee is protective, but they strongly suggest that drinking coffee in large amounts is not harmful if you are healthy, researcher Esther Lopez-Garcia, Ph.D., of the University of Madrid, tells WebMD.

Among women, drinking two to three cups of coffee a day was associated with an 18 percent reduction in death from all causes, while drinking four to five cups was associated with a 26 percent reduction in risk.

The risk reduction in men was smaller and could have been due to chance."We can't say from this one study that coffee extends your life, but it does appear that it doesn't increase the risk for death for people who are healthy," she says.

The full article can be read here.