The positive effects of drinking coffee continue to mount, and the lifelong benefits of using coffee are being demonstrated. There are many positive aspects, and the list of attributes is growing. It seems that every time a research study is undertaken to point out why drinking coffee is bad or that people should restrict their intake of it, just the opposite happens – additional benefits are uncovered and revealed.
This is great news for aging in place professionals because it means that people who are coffee drinkers are improving their overall health in many ways.
In the past 5 years, there have been several studies that indicate coffee may be the perfect beverage for healthy living. In addition to having been established as a significant anti-oxidant, it has substantial additional benefits.
In the latest report, published from a Harvard research study conducted by nutritionists and based on more than 30 years of data collected from some 200,000 health care professionals, the chief finding was that nonsmokers drinking 3-5 cups of coffee per day were 15% less likely to die early from any cause compared to non-coffee drinkers. For those drinking more than 5 cups of coffee a day, the results were still good: 12% less incidence of early death. For drinkers of 1-3 cups daily, the results were an 8% decrease, and just one cup a day produced a 6% reduction.
In this study, either regular or decaf seemed to be effective, while other studies primarily have shown the benefits of drinking caffeinated coffee. This study also found that coffee use lowers the risk of premature death from heart disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Previous studies from other research centers have already concluded that coffee consumption, and more specifically caffeine consumption associated with coffee, may reduce the risk of contracting Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and help slow the rate of cognitive decline in older adults, that it reduces the risk of suicide, that it can lower oral cancers by up to 50%, and that it reduces the risk of stroke in older women.
Coffee has also been shown to help control asthma and certain allergies, to retard the formation of breast cancer and prostate cancer, and to not raise blood pressure.
As aging-in-place providers, this information on the health benefits of coffee consumption is great to have.