Can coffee help you live longer? Some scientists think so

Is coffee a health drink? While we’ve seen some interesting and often polarizing reports about just how healthy coffee is over the years, one thing appears to remain clear: there are some health benefits to drinking coffee. However, researchers say that just how good or bad it is for you can all depend on how you take your coffee.

Growing up, I always watched my parents and my grandparents drink coffee each morning. Eventually, I picked up the habit myself, and now it’s very rare that I don’t start my day with a hit or two of caffeine. For many of us, though, that hit comes with a load of sugar and creamer. For others, the taste of bitter, black coffee is a treat unlike anything else on the menu.

But how you take your coffee is more important than you think. Sure, there’s the usual business about too much sugar being bad for you. But researchers say that drinking coffee could actually make you live longer. The trick, though, is drinking it the right way.

A little sugar goes a long way

Findings published in a new study show that the health benefits of drinking coffee can vary. Out of all the participants in the test, researchers say that those who drank their coffee black or with very little sugar or fat saw a 14% lower risk of dying compared to those who didn’t drink coffee at all. However, when adding more sugar and fat, those benefits disappeared completely.

The study didn’t just look at coffee drinkers, either. It actually looked at data from over 46,000 adults, with information dating back nearly 20 years (between 1999 and 2018). Participants in the data gathering kept up with how much they ate and drank in a 24-hour period. Additionally, they tracked their coffee habits, which were tracked alongside other information needed for the CDC’s National Death Index.

The researchers broke down the information based on the caffeine level of the coffee, as well as how much sugar and fat each cup contained. For some additional context, the researchers considered “low sugar” to mean less than 2.5 grams per cup, which is roughly half a teaspoon. Not much to cut through the bitterness that coffee often carries.

Far from the whole story

The researchers found that while the benefits of drinking coffee didn’t seem to stack long-term, there were slightly increased benefits for those two drank two to three cups. Those who drank one cup a day saw a 16% drop in overall mortality risk. However, those who drank two to three cups saw a slightly better 17% drop. That said, the benefits didn’t seem to stack any further beyond that. So, more is definitely not better in this case.