The study involving 400,000 people published in N Engl J Med recently , coffee
consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality
.
In this largest study to date,
which ran over duration of 13 years (1995
- 2008) 229,119 men and 173,141 women were recruited. This study was done by National
Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study(Funded by the Intramural
Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer
Institute, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.) Mean ages of
subjects at baseline was between 50-71 years which excluded people with cancer
and and vascular diseases.
This study was path-breaking by finding an inverse association between coffee drinking and
mortality and it turned out to be a happy news for coffee lovers. It is
observed that in men for 2-6 cups/day, there was 10% decrease in mortality and
in women for 2 to 3 cups there was 13% decrease in mortality. For more than 6
cupsthe mortality reduced by 15%. Inverse associations were observed for
deaths due to heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and
accidents, diabetes, and infections, but not for deaths due to cancer. Results
were similar in subgroups, including persons who had never smoked and persons
who reported very good to excellent health at baseline.
In this large prospective study,
coffee consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific
mortality. Whether this was a causal or associational finding cannot be
determined from this .
