It seems like there’s always new positive or negative information when it comes to coffee or caffeine. While a cup of coffee may be good for you every once in a while, one thing we do know is that excess coffee consumption can have a less than stellar impact on your overall health and well-being.
A new study has found that individuals under the age of 55 may actually be at an increased risk of death if their coffee consumption is abnormally high.
The study was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and found a “linked consumption of more than 28 cups of coffee a week to an increased risk of mortality in those aged under 55 years – with no adverse effects found in heavy coffee drinkers over 55,” reports Food Navigator.
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The study was led by Dr. Junxiu Liu from the University of South Carolina and confirmed notions that coffee consumption has been long suspected to contribute to a host of chronic health condition. Liu wrote that “In this large US cohort study, a positive association between heavy coffee consumption (>28 cups per week) and all-cause mortality was observed in the total population of men and in men and women younger than 55 years. However for people 55 years and older, this association was not statistically significant for either sex.”
Between the years of 1979 and 1998, nearly 45,000 people aged 20 to 87 years of age participated in a medical questionnaire that analyzed lifestyle habits – including coffee consumption and their own medical history. Liu and his team “examined a total of 43,727 participants in the final analysis with deaths from all causes and deaths from cardiovascular disease identified through the National Death Index of by accessing death certificates.”
They found that “younger men had a trend towards higher mortality even at lower consumption, but this became significant at about 28 cups per week – where there was a 56% increase in mortality from all causes.” They also found that “younger women who consumed more than 28 cups of coffee per week also had a greater than 2- fold higher risk of all-cause mortality than those who did not drink coffee.” Senior author of the study Dr. Steven Blair noted that “significantly, the results did not demonstrate any association between coffee consumption and all-cause mortality among older men and women.”
Liu and his research team noted that because of this, younger people may want to avoid consuming high amounts of coffee, but that “further research is still needed to better assess the effects of long-term coffee consumption and changes in coffee consumption over time on all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.”
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Photo Credit: epSos.de
