HHS HealthBeat (August 06, 2008)

Not dying for coffee

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Drink up to six cups of coffee a day, and you might have a real habit. But it doesn’t look like coffee will do you in. Researchers say that because they compared coffee drinking with the risk of death in two big, long-running studies. At Harvard Medical School, Rob Van Dam:

``The bottom line of this study is even drinking a lot of coffee – like up to six cups of coffee per day – doesn’t affect your mortality over the long run. So it’s a good indicator that high coffee consumption is not detrimental for overall health.’’  (13 seconds)

And the study found that, for women, two to three cups a day slightly lowered their risk of heart disease and other causes of death. Men didn’t show that benefit.

The study in Annals of Internal Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August, 06 2008