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Could Coffee Be the Key to Long Life

Could Coffee Be the Key to Long Life

You always hear about the health benefits of tea, but coffee's health benefits are impressive in their own right. We think they deserve the spotlight too!

Studies have found promising findings that could be attributed to drinking 2-3 cups of black coffee daily:

  • Protect against developing type II diabetes
  • Lower the risk or slow the progress of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers, Parkinson's, and dementia
  • Most impressively, an analysis of over 200 studies in the British Medical Journal in 2017 found that coffee drinkers were 19% less likely to die of heart disease, 30% less likely to die of stroke, and less likely to develop some cancers 

Is coffee the key to a long life? Study finds it lowers the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure

  • Scientists have long wondered why coffee drinkers tend to have longer lives
  • Now US scientists believe they've found the answer - and it's to do with caffeine
  • It helps to block chemicals in the blood that promote inflammation, they say 
  • Inflamed blood vessels are more likely to become stiffer – a risk of heart disease

Drinking coffee and tea may help people to live longer by reducing chemicals in the blood that can trigger heart disease, researchers have found.

The finding that coffee drinkers tend to live longer than people who abstain has long puzzled scientists.

Now researchers at Stanford University believe they may have hit on a reason why a having a coffee or tea break is so good for us.

Caffeine, the ingredient that gives coffee, tea and some fizzy drinks a lift blocks chemicals in our blood that promote inflammation.

Turkish coffee on coffee beans with text on the image

Inflamed blood vessels are more likely to become stiffer – a risk factor for heart disease.

Inflammation also plays a key role in many other diseases, the research study said.

Tests on the blood of people fewer of the chemicals linked to inflammation – were found to have more caffeine in their bloodstream.

Further investigation revealed that they, as might be expected, drank more coffee than their peers.

A chemical found in chocolate, theobromine, was also found to have an anti-inflammatory effect, although not as pronounced as caffeine.

David Furman of the Stanford University’s Institute for Immunity, Transplantaion and Infection said: ‘More than 90 per cent of all noncommunicable diseases of aging are associated with chronic inflammation.’

Dr Furmann added: ‘It’s also well known that caffeine intake is associated with longevity. Many studies have shown this association. We’ve found a possible reason for why this may be so.’

His colleague Mark Davis added: ‘Our findings show that an underlying inflammatory process, which is associated with aging, is not only driving cardiovascular disease but is, in turn, driven by molecular events that we may be able to target and combat.’

The authors found that in an ongoing study following participants aged 20-30, and another group of people aged 60, those who ‘tended to drink more caffeinated beverages’ had lower levels of inflammatory compounds in their blood.

Further tests in the laboratory in human cell cultures found that caffeine had an active role in combating the chemicals that trigger inflammation.

The key chemical combated by caffeine is called Interleukin-1-beta.

When injected into mice, IL-1-Beta led to ‘massive systemic inflammation, along with high blood pressure’. It also led to immune cells – white blood cells that fight infection and – clogging the animals kidneys. It also found more platelets platelets, which make blood more likely to clot.

Dr Davis said: ‘That something many people drink — and actually like to drink — might have a direct benefit came as a surprise to us’.

‘What we’ve shown is a correlation between caffeine consumption and longevity. And we’ve shown more rigorously, in laboratory tests, a very plausible mechanism for why this might be so.’

The study was published in Nature Medicine. 


Source: Colin Fernandez Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Additional Sources (for Intro):
Colleen Frankhart, Health Benefits of Coffee, RUSH Stories, Food & Nutrition, 09/26/2023, <https://www.rush.edu/news/health-benefits-coffee>
Gulland AScientists wake up to coffee’s benefits doi:10.1136/bmj.j5381
Wierzejska R. Can coffee consumption lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease? A literature review. Arch Med Sci. 2017 Apr 1;13(3):507-514. doi: 10.5114/aoms.2016.63599. Epub 2016 Nov 15. PMID: 28507563; PMCID: PMC5420628.

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