Go ahead, have that third cup of coffee. (Stocksy)
New
research from Harvard University has found it may decrease your risk of
dying from a host of diseases — and even lower your risk of suicide.
For the study, which was published in the journal Circulation,
researchers analyzed coffee consumption of more than 208,000 people
over 30 years, as well as cause of death. Their coffee drinking was
assessed every four years using food questionnaires.
Researchers
discovered that people who drank one to five cups of decaf or regular
coffee a day had a lower risk of mortality than those who didn’t. They
were specifically less likely to die from heart disease, neurological
diseases, Type 2 diabetes, and suicide. (They did not find a significant
association between cancer and coffee consumption.)
Coffee
consumption has already been linked with a lower risk of heart disease.
An analysis of 36 studies published last year in the journal Circulation
found that people who drink three to five cups of coffee a day were at
the lowest risk of developing heart disease. (People who drank five or
more cups a day didn’t have a higher risk than those who drank no
coffee.)
Previous research published in the journal Diabetes Care also found that moderate consumption of decaf and regular coffee can lower a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
But the suicide link is especially intriguing. Can regularly drinking coffee really reduce a chance that someone will commit suicide?
Study
co-author Qi Sun, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of
Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says yes.
“It’s probably because of the caffeine,” he tells Yahoo Health. “It’s a
central part of coffee and it’s known to boost people’s moods and make
them feel happy.”
While
the study found the effect was similar for regular and decaf coffee,
Sun points out that decaf still contains a certain amount of caffeine.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40,000 Americans commit suicide each year, making it the 10th leading cause of death.
Previous
research has also established a link between a lowered risk of suicide
and coffee consumption. A 16-year Harvard study published in the World Journal of Biological Psychiatryin 2013 found that drinking two to four cups of caffeinated coffee a day can lower a person’s risk of suicide by 50 percent.
“At
low to moderate doses, caffeine has well-known psycho-stimulant
effects, such as improved psychomotor performance, increased vigilance,
elevated arousal, and increased sensations of well-being and energy,”
Michel Lucas, PhD, a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School
of Public Health, who co-authored the 2013 coffee study, tells Yahoo
Health.
But
he says more may be at play than just caffeine: “It is possible that
non-coffee drinkers are predisposed to depression/suicide because of
other reasons and that increasing their coffee intake will not help.”
While
the reason for the link is still somewhat unclear, Lucas says recent
research should reassure coffee drinkers that their daily cup (or three)
may be boosting their health.
However,
he says people shouldn’t misinterpret the results. “We’re not at the
point where we can say, ‘Drink coffee so you won’t get depressed,’” he
says.
Research has found there’s a limit to the benefits of coffee drinking and a person’s suicide risk. A study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology
found that people who drank eight or more cups of coffee a day had a 58
percent greater risk of suicide than those who drank less.
Sun
stresses that coffee isn’t the answer for everything, but it can help a
person stay healthy. “Coffee is not a magic bullet,” he says. “But if
you can drink coffee as part of a health diet and lifestyle, that will
be great.”
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