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(Ivanhoe Newswire) Having that morning cup of coffee every day could help protect you from heart disease. New research finds drinking coffee regularly up to six cups a day actually reduces your risk of dying from heart disease.
The study analyzed data of 84,214 women who were in the Nurses Health Study and 41,736 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Participants answered questionnaires every two to four years about how frequently they drank coffee, other diet habits, smoking and health conditions.
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Researchers found women who had two to three cups of coffee per day had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease during the follow-up period from 1980 to 2004 compared with those who didnt drink coffee, and an 18 percent lower risk of dying from something other than cancer or heart disease. Men who drank the same amount of coffee had neither a higher nor a lower risk of death from 1986 to 2004.
Results also show there was no association between drinking coffee and dying of cancer. This does not seem to be related to caffeine because people who drank decaf also had lower death rates than those who did not drink coffee.
The editors of Annals of Internal Medicine caution the design of the study does not make it certain that coffee reduces the chances of dying sooner than expected. They say something else about coffee drinkers might be protecting them. There might also be some errors in how much coffee participants drank because the estimated consumption came from self-reports.
SOURCE: Annals of Internal Medicine, 2008;148:904-914
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