By Diane Lofshult

Food for Thought:

How many mornings have you thought you would die for a cup of coffee? According to a study in the June 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, that cup o’ Joe may actually reduce your mortality risk!

To assess the association between coffee consumption and all-cause mortality, researchers studied more than 41,000 men and 86,000 women enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and the Nurses’ Health Study. Coffee consumption was assessed at baseline and then again every 2–4 years during the study period, which lasted more than two decades.

At the end of the study, regular coffee consumption (up to 6 cups per day) was not associated with an increased mortality rate in either the men or the women who participated. Interestingly, the authors of the study suggested that there might be a modest benefit to drinking either caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee when it comes to decreasing the risk of all-cause or CVD mortality.