There’s a very good chance that there’s a ritual you already do every single day that is linked to living a longer life. In fact, you might even be doing it right now: Drinking coffee. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that regularly drinking coffee can improve longevity and lower your risk of mortality—a pretty big deal. But before you use science as an excuse to go to Starbucks every day, there are some factors about the study that registered dietitians want everyone to know.
How Drinking Coffee Could Help You Live Longer
For the study, researchers followed over 171,000 healthy participants—with the average person being 55 years old—for nine years. One of the connections that they realized when looking at the data was that the coffee drinkers had a lower risk of mortality. What’s more, this connection still held true even when other factors such as lifestyle and sociodemographics were taken into account. What makes coffee so beneficial to health? Registered dietitianMelissa Rifkin, RD, says that one reason is that coffee is high in antioxidants, which have long been shown to help prevent and lower chronic inflammation. This is important because inflammation is the root cause of chronic diseases and cancer. Registered dietitianAyat Sleymann, RDN, says that coffee also has several key nutrients linked to preventing certain types of cancer. These nutrients include riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), magnesium, potassium, and lignans (a type of polyphenol).
What To Keep In Mind When Buying Coffee or Making It At Home
The study researchers found that even people who put sugar in their coffee had a reduced risk for mortality. Does this mean you can order a mocha frappuccino every day and expect the same benefits? Not exactly. The study doesn’t detail how much sugar the participants sweetened their coffee with, but if other studies are taken into consideration, it likely wasn’t much. In fact, other studies show that consuming sugar can cut lifespan short. Additionally, the researchers found that people who added artificial sweeteners to their coffee did not always experience the life-lengthening benefits of the other coffee drinkers. In fact, incorporating artificial sweeteners seemed to be even worse than adding sugar. “Artificial sweeteners are chemicals added to some foods and beverages to make them taste sweet without adding any calories,” Sleymann explains. “Many of the suggested ‘beneficial effects’ of artificial sweeteners remain invalidated in large scale clinical studies and it is best to avoid them when possible.” Sleymann says that some studies have shown that artificial sweeteners disrupt the body’s ability to regulate calorie intake, can increase appetite, harm gut health, and can lead to weight gain. If you want to sweeten your coffee without adding sugar or artificial sweeteners, consider adding cinnamon. This herb can actually enhance the longevity benefits of your coffee because it’s full of antioxidants and linked to supporting heart health. By the way, both dietitians say that you can drink decaf coffee and still reap the longevity-supporting benefits highlighted in the study. “Since the longevity benefits are not a direct result of the caffeine, decaf coffee [will have] the same longevity benefits,” Sleymann says. Rifkin echoes this saying that, like caffeinated coffee, decaf coffee is high in antioxidants—the big reason why coffee is linked to decreased mortality. If you’re not a coffee fan—whether it’s caffeinated or not—you don’t have to choke down the beverage in the name of good health. Both dietitians say that it certainly isn’t the only drink linked to living longer. In fact, Rifkin says that people who have irritable bowel syndrome, have trouble sleeping, or are pregnant may want to minimize their coffee intake. Sleymann adds that people with anxiety may also want to avoid drinking coffee. Instead, Rifkin suggests tea as a daily beverage of choice because, like coffee, it’s high in antioxidants. Just be sure to avoid loading your cup of tea with sugar or artificial sweeteners; just like with coffee, it will lessen the health benefits—perhaps even undoing them completely. Sleymann suggests matcha or green tea in particular. This type of tea has caffeine but not the crash that coffee has. It has also been linked to longevity and supporting brain health. The new study shows that the foods and drinks we consume every day matter; they can directly affect how long we may live. But it’s also important to know that there isn’t one food or drink that will make or break your health. Your morning beverage of choice is only one small part of the way you live. The other foods and drinks you consume, how active you are, how much sleep you get, and stress management all play a role in determining overall health too. But if you are a coffee drinker, isn’t it nice to know that you’re already starting each day by doing something that could help you live longer? We thought so. Next up, find out if coffee or tea is the healthier drink.
Sources
Melissa Rifkin, RD, registered dietitianAyat Sleymann, RDN, registered dietitian
