People who regularly drink coffee every day could live longer and healthier lives even if they add sugar, a new study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests.
Researchers from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, observed data on coffee habits and health from more than 171,000 residents in the United Kingdom. The subjects did not have cancer or heart disease at the beginning of the study and were monitored over a period of seven years.
Regular Coffee Health Benefits
Previously there has been evidence that suggested drinking coffee helps a person live longer, a theory that the Chinese researchers attempted to test. They wanted to see whether or not the claims were true even when people added sugar to their daily coffee drinks.
The study found that those who regularly drank unsweetened coffee were 16% to 21% less likely to die during the study than their peers who did not drink coffee at all. Furthermore, participants in the study who drank between one and four cups of lightly sweetened coffee per day were found to be 29% to 31% less likely to die during the observation period, as per Insider.
The researchers also found that outcomes were less clear for participants who used artificial sweeteners which have seen similarly mixed results in previous studies. Some experts and evidence believe that these products can be a safe, healthy swap for sugar but others raise concerns of possible associations with cancer or metabolic health issues.
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Despite the results of the study, the evidence does not necessarily endorse highly sugary coffee drinks as being healthy, said an accompanying editorial by Harvard professor Dr. Christina Wee on Southern Medical University's study. Participants added about a teaspoon of sugar per cup on average, which is much less than the amount of sweetener typically found in prepared or blended coffee drinks.
According to The Guardian, one of the flaws of the study is that it questioned participants about coffee drinking and other habits only once and relied on self-reporting. A professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, Naveed Sattar, who was not involved with the study, cautioned that the findings, while intriguing, were not clear-cut.
Inconsistencies of the Study
The medical professional said that the observational nature of the new study meant that its conclusions were far from definitive. He argued that this was because coffee drinkers are in general more affluent and have healthier lives than non-drinkers. Sattar said he was unconvinced whether the factors can be overcome in observational studies.
He suggested that people should stick to coffee or tea preferably without sugar, which most people can adapt to, and try to do other things that can keep their bodies healthy, such as moving more and eating and sleeping better.
Dr. Chen Mao of Southern Medical University in Guangzhou said that the results of the study were less consistent among those who used artificial sweeteners. She and co-authors acknowledged the limitations of the study including participant data being at least 10 years old and being collected in a country where tea was just as popular as coffee, Good Morning America reported.
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