Enjoyed that cup of freshly brewed coffee this morning?  That magical shot of caffeine that suddenly perks up your system in the wee morning hours or during a late-night at the office, is one of life’s indulgences that some of us cannot do without.

 

According to legend, thanks to an observant Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldis who noticed that his goats, upon eating berries from a tree, did not want to sleep at night, coffee was discovered.  Millions of coffee drinkers around the world have since turned this obscure tree-berry into one of the most widely consumed beverages.

 

Many researchers and nutritionists have painted quite a negative picture in regards to the consumption of coffee.  Coffee is a stimulant, has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and blood pressure, and generally not considered to be part of a healthy lifestyle.

 

Well there’s good news coffee lovers, a new study, one that has been hailed as possibly the largest and most comprehensive, involving more than 400,000 participants, 52,000 deaths and spanning more than a decade of data collection, detected that coffee drinkers may be more likely to live longer.

 

Researchers of the National Cancer Institute even went as far to say that actually there may be a modest benefit from drinking coffee.

 

Lead researcher Neal Freedman does not denounce findings from other studies showing that coffee could raise blood pressure and increase the risk of heart disease.  However, thanks to the large amount of sampling in his latest study, this allowed for subgroup analyses according to other important factors, such as smoking and diabetes.  Once these subgroup analyses were taken into account, the results from the study clearly showed a positive relation between a cup of coffee per day and increasing one’s chances of living longer.

 

Capital Lifestyle Magazine’s health guru advises coffee drinkers that like all things in life, too much of anything may not be best – drink coffee in moderation and reduce the amount of sugar you put in your coffee.

 

Journal Source: The New England Journal of Medicine