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(NEXSTAR) – A study presented at the American Society for Nutrition Monday suggests that an eye-opening cup of java may also have long-term health benefits for women.
“Our study has several key strengths,” said Sara Mahdavi, lead researcher and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, in a press release. “In addition to the large sample size and 30 years of follow-up, we assessed several different aspects of longevity and healthy aging as well as very comprehensive information on nutritional and lifestyle habits that were collected every four years after the initiation of the study.”
The study followed 47,513 women using dietary and health data from the Nurses’ Health Study dating back to 1984.
While not yet peer-reviewed or published, the supporting data is extensive, experts say, and its conclusion lines up with several other studies that have found coffee to have beneficial effects.
“The data is quite consistent that coffee consumption is actually beneficial,” a Tufts University professor not affiliated with the study told The New York Times.
What were the findings?
The study looked at the frequency with which the participants drank coffee, tea, cola or decaffeinated coffee, while accounting for other factors that could influence health aging, such as body weight, smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, education level and protein consumption.
Every four years, researchers collected follow-up information on the participants’ nutritional and lifestyle habits, including regular caffeine consumption.
After three decades, there were 3,706 women who met the definition of a health ager: “living to age 70 or older, being free from 11 major chronic diseases, maintaining physical function, having good mental health, exhibiting no cognitive impairment and showing no memory complaints.”
In mid-life, those same woman consumed, on average, 315 mg of caffeine per day, or about one and a half large cups of coffee. The vast majority of that caffeine intake came from regular coffee, according to the study.
“For women in the healthy agers group, each extra cup of coffee per day was tied to a 2% to 5% higher chance of doing well later in life, up to five small cups per day, or about 2.5 cups according to today’s measures,” the news release stated.
Alternatively, researchers found no link between healthy aging and decaffeinated coffee or tea.
“The health benefits apppeared specific to coffee, rather than caffeine more broadly,” Mahdavi told Fox News Digital. “We didn’t see the same associations with decaf coffee, tea or caffeinated soda, suggesting that coffee’s unique combination of bioactive compounds may play a key role.”
Caffeinated soda, the study found, lowered participants’ chances of healthy aging by 20 percent to 26 percent.
“These results, while preliminary, suggest that small, consistent habits can shape long-term health,” said Mahdavi. “Moderate coffee intake may offer some protective benefits when combined with other healthy behaviors such as regular exercise, a healthy diet and avoiding smoking. While this study adds to prior evidence suggesting coffee intake may be linked with healthy aging, the benefits from coffee are relatively modest compared to the impact of overall healthy lifestyle habits and warrant further investigation.”
Limitations of the study
Despite the generous sample size, Mahdavi noted that the study mostly examined the health and habits of white, educated female health professionals.
“Further work is needed to confirm generalizability to broader populations,” she told Fox News Digital, adding that, while the results are positive for coffee drinkers, the study doesn’t show a direct causal relationship between the beverage and long-term health.
In other words, there’s no guarantee that starting a coffee habit will lead to a healthier aging process, but the study suggests that coffee drinkers don’t necessarily need to cut back on the beverage in an attempt to maintain their health as they get older, David Kao, professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School told CNN.
For those people who aren’t already coffee drinkers, or abstain from caffeine, Mahdavi said her team does not recommend taking up the habit.
People with medical concerns including high blood pressure, sleep issues or anxiety, should speak with a healthcare provider before drinking coffee, as it may not be advisable.