Coffee drinkers at lower risk of early death, study suggests

Coffee drinkers have a lower risk of an early death, according to a new study - whether they add sugar or not.

Previous studies have found that drinking coffee can reduce the risk of heart diseases and other serious illnesses.

However, they did not take into account the amount of sugar that was consumed with the coffee.

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Now, researchers in China have evaluated how much sugar in coffee impacts the mortality rate in a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

They used data from a total of 171, 616 participants from the UK BioBank with a mean age of 55.6 years withour cardiovascular disease or cancer with a medium follow-up of seven years from 2009.

In order to keep track of the participants, 3,177 of whom died, they used data from death certificates.

They found that people who drank a moderate amount of coffee a day, with sugar or withour, had a lower risk of death than those who did not.

The study also took into account various factors of the participants including sex, ethnicity, body mass index, diet, and physical activity.

The greatest impact was seen for those who drink between 2.5 and 4.5 cups a day, with a reduction of an earth death of 29 per cent.

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However, Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow expressed sceptism about the findings, sayinf the conclusions are “far from definitive”.

Speaking to The Guardian, he said: “This is because coffee drinkers are in general more affluent and have healthier lives than non-drinkers and I remain unconvinced whether these factors can be overcome in observational studies.”

The professor advised that people stick to drinking coffee or tea without sugar, and meanwhile keep up a healthy lifestyle of exercising, eating and sleeping well.

Dr Christina Wee, deputy editor of the journal, also flagged that the findings in the study were not conclusive.

But she conceded that drinking coffee, sweetened or not, does not appear to be harmful for most- though added that it is better to avoid too many sugar filled coffee drinks.