International News

MIAMI, July 11 (APP/AFP) – Coffee addicts and
aficionados often say drinking the bitter liquid makes life worth living, but the habit may also help them live longer, according to two major international studies Monday.
Experts cautioned, however, that the US and European reports,
published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, failed to show that coffee was truly the reason that many drinkers appeared to have longer lives.
Rather, the studies were observational in nature, meaning they showed
an association between coffee-drinking and a propensity toward longevity, but stopped short of proving cause and effect.
The first study, led by the International Agency for Research on
Cancer (IARC) and Imperial College London, examined more than half a million people across 10 countries in Europe.
Those who drank about three cups a day tended to live longer than
non-coffee drinkers, said the study, which researchers described as the largest analysis of the effects of coffee-drinking in a European population.
“We found that higher coffee consumption was associated with a lower
risk of death from any cause, and specifically for circulatory diseases, and
digestive diseases,” said lead author Marc Gunter of the IARC, formerly at
Imperial’s School of Public Health.
“Importantly, these results were similar across all of the 10
European countries, with variable coffee drinking habits and customs.”
The second study included more than 180,000 participants of various
ethnic backgrounds in the United States.
It found benefits to longevity whether the coffee was caffeinated or
decaffeinated.
Coffee drinkers had a lower risk of death due to heart disease,
cancer, stroke, diabetes, and respiratory and kidney disease.