I’ve always loved the taste of coffee. Weak, creamy, sweet coffee. You probably do too; when asked people tend to state their desire for strong, rich blends, though in reality most of them want anything but. The question is, is it good for you? That’s dubious (and should be obvious that it depends on your individual body and state of health). Studies like this one pop up every now and then (and not just for coffee) listing benefits seen among consumers in a given time. Turns out coffee drinkers* tend to die less during these periods, for almost any reason, including accidents(!). An inverse correlation was found between coffee consumption and death from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries or accidents, diabetes, and infections. Apparently its only weakness is cancer. No changes there (more on that in a bit).

While that looks interesting and tempting, don’t start a 6 cup a day habit just yet (that’s the 10% less-likely-to-die-in-a-given-period margin compared to non-drinkers) not only because of the caffeine related sleep disorders and withdrawal symptoms, but because the study itself concludes stating ‘Whether this was a causal or associational finding cannot be determined from our data’. That’s probably the most important line in studies of this sort. I have no idea what type of person drinks over 6 cups of coffee a day and lives to try to sleep another day**, but they might be prone to different types of lifestyles or body types than non-drinkers. The study adjusts for the difference between mortality due to smoking (if you don’t coffee drinkers end up with higher mortality rates, because they are also prone to smoke).

So then how do you apply such information to your daily coffee intake? You don’t. What is stated, as is, is what was learned. Instructions for your habits don’t come into it.

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This post was brought to you by a study on Tofu: ‘higher midlife tofu consumption was independently associated with indicators of cognitive impairment and brain atrophy in late life.” howaboutthat.
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*Results independent of caffeine.
**unless it’s decaf, which we all know is cheating.