Study: Coffee makes one live longer

NAIROBI, KENYA: A new study has good news for Kenyan farmers after revealing that people who drink coffee regularly do live longer.

According to snippets of the study, which is likely to excite farmers in parts of Central, Eastern and Rift Valley published on Wednesday by Annals of Internal Medicine, people who have at least a cup of coffee every day increase their life span by 12 per cent.

The study  appears to have a dosage of how much coffee one should consume, suggesting that taking more than a cup increases  chances of living longer by 18 per cent.

As controversial as it is, the study goes ahead to claim that the findings, are because coffee  reduces chances of one getting diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, stroke, kidney and respiratory failure.

The findings contrasts with  a 2015 study published by Medical News Today, which found that  taking four cups of coffee a day increases risks of early death. The same study concluded that it was not advisable  for pregnant women to take the beverage.

But researchers of the newest study have questioned their own findings whether it was coffee that was reducing risk of death or the subjects of their research could have adopted a healthier lifestyle.

"It is plausible that there is something else behind this that is causing this relationship," said Marc Gunter, a co-author of one of the studies, from the International Agency for Research on Cancer as reported by The Guardian.

He added: "But based on the results I would be surprised if coffee itself did not play a role in reducing the risk of death."

At least 185,000 individuals both white and non-white were observed for a period of 16 years having been recruited in early 90s.

"The results revealed that drinking one cup of coffee a day was linked to a 12 per cent lower risk of death at any age, from any cause; while those drinking two or three cups a day had an 18 per cent lower risk, with the association not linked to ethnicity," the study reads.

Co-author of the research and US based Associate Professor Veronica Setiawan from the University of Southern California said: "We found that coffee drinkers had a reduced risk of death from heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, and diabetes and kidney disease."

The conclusion was made after considering other factors like age, physical activity of the subjects, smokers and non-smokers, and quantity of coffee taken.