Coffee drinkers enjoy longer lifespans, and three cups a day may be the sweet spot

Coffee addicts and aficionados often say it makes life worth living, but the habit may also help them live longer, according to two major international studies Monday.

Experts cautioned, however, that the US and European reports, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, failed to show that coffee was truly the reason that many drinkers appeared to have longer lives.

Rather, the studies were observational in nature, meaning they showed an association between coffee-drinking and a propensity toward longevity, but stopped short of proving cause and effect.

The first study, led by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and Imperial College London, examined more than half a million people across 10 countries in Europe.

Those who drank about three cups a day tended to live longer than non-coffee drinkers, said the study, which researchers described as the largest analysis of the effects of coffee-drinking in a European population.

“We found that higher coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause, and specifically for circulatory diseases, and digestive diseases,” said lead author Marc Gunter of the IARC, formerly at Imperial’s School of Public Health.