Does Drinking Coffee Really Help You Live Longer?

For many of us, drinking coffee is pretty routine. I think it's safe to say that at least 75 percent of us drink it simply just to wake up in the morning (I mean, I desperately need it just for that very reason). It's no secret that this delicious and highly caffeinated beverage has been the center focal point of friendly gatherings for a long time now (A popular 90s television show distinctively comes to mind). If you guessed Friends, you get major brownie points! But can drinking coffee have health benefits that we didn't know about before?

While being a single mother, I rely very strongly on coffee to keep me going. In other words, I may be drinking too much of it. So I decided to do a little research on the pros and cons in fear it was doing more long-term harm than "in the moment" good. One of the first things I stumbled upon was an article from the Mayo Clinic, headlining health benefits from coffee. Apparently, drinking coffee protects against Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, improves cognitive function, and in some cases, decreases the risk of depression.

I can understand it helping with depression (not saying I'm depressed) but coffee does improve my mood for sure. I ran into some skeptics who say coffee is just a psychological addiction, that your brain is triggered to want it as soon as you smell it. So something that can have that much power over your mind can't possibly be good for you in any way. (LOL)

After reading the benefits coffee brings to the table, I finally came to the not so great effects. Younger people who drink large amounts, smoke, and aren't very physically active have a low probability of coffee benefiting them in health. Also, depending on how your body metabolizes caffeine, espresso can lead to higher cholesterol levels.

There is a British study called the U.K Biobank where 500,000 people volunteered to give blood and answer detailed health questions for a period of ten years (coffee and non-coffee drinkers) and approx. 14,000 of them died of natural health issues. Researchers at the University of Southampton found people who drank three to four cups of coffee a day had a significantly lower risk of early death. That alone blew my mind and somewhat found it far-fetched until I dug into the Biobank website and found that Dr. Erikka Loftfield, a cancer epidemiologist at the National Institute of Health in Maryland, said the results of this study were very much the truth, whether the type of coffee drank was ground, instant or decaffeinated. Even researchers from other institutions like the National Institutes of Health, say "We hope the findings provide further reassurance that coffee can be part of a healthy diet."

Bottom line, coffee is definitely beneficial to your health (assuming you don't overload it with cream and sugar, of course). So drink up fellow coffee lovers, and enjoy that cup o' Joe, guilt-free because it will help you live a bit longer than those naysayers ;)

-Bree