Does coffee lower the risk of premature death?
Coffee (3 to 4 cups per day, preferably in the morning and without much sugar) is associated with less early death in large population studies, but this is an association, not a proven cause. Pregnant women are a clear exception.
Yes, people who drink coffee daily have shown a lower risk of early death than non-drinkers in several large population studies. However, coffee itself has not been proven to be the cause. All the evidence comes from research in which no one was assigned to anything.
The strongest association appears at around 3.5 cups per day: people who drink that much coffee die prematurely about 15 to 17% less often in those studies, which translates to an average of 1.8 extra years of healthy life. The same association holds for death from cardiovascular disease (17 to 19% lower) and, somewhat less markedly, for cancer mortality (at 2 cups per day, roughly 4% lower). The format makes little difference: regular filter coffee, espresso and instant coffee have all been studied, and decaffeinated coffee shows comparable results. Caffeine content therefore does not appear to matter for this purpose.
What does matter is how you drink your coffee. Black coffee and coffee with little sugar show the protective association; with large amounts of sugar or cream-like additions, that benefit disappears. Timing also seems to play a role: in a study of more than 40,000 participants, people who drank coffee mainly in the morning had a 16% lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 31% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality compared with non-drinkers. In people who drank coffee throughout the day, that benefit was not observed. This is a single study, and confirmation is still lacking.
There are important exceptions. During pregnancy, high coffee consumption has been associated in population studies with low birth weight, preterm birth and miscarriage; discuss this with your doctor. In women there is also a signal that coffee increases the risk of bone fractures, although this is absent in men. In addition, caffeine can cause feelings of anxiety, sleep problems, heart palpitations and a temporarily raised blood pressure.
Evidence based on multiple meta-analyses and large cohort studies (up to nearly 4 million participants); no randomised trials are available for the mortality outcomes. Causality has not been established.
Is coffee good or bad for your heart?
For most healthy adults, three to four filtered cups per day is associated with a beneficial effect on the heart and blood vessels. Pregnant women are an important exception: for them, the maximum is around two cups per day.
Does lowering my blood pressure really reduce my risk?
Lowering blood pressure genuinely works: your risk of stroke and other cardiovascular problems demonstrably decreases. Exercise and dark chocolate also provide a modest additional benefit.
Does sitting all day increase your risk of heart problems?
Sitting a lot increases your risk of heart failure and heart-related mortality, even if you exercise regularly. Just 30 minutes less sitting per day produces a measurable improvement, so try to break up long periods of sitting regularly.
Does gratitude or optimism help your health and longevity?
Greater optimism is linked, across several large, long-running studies, to a considerably lower risk of dying from heart and blood vessel disease and a greater chance of ageing healthily. These are associations, not proven cause and effect, but the pattern is strikingly consistent and large enough in magnitude to take seriously.
Can losing weight noticeably improve my blood pressure and cholesterol?
Losing weight noticeably lowers your blood pressure and improves your cholesterol profile, but which value improves the most depends on your diet. And if the weight comes back, most of the gains disappear too.
Does regular sauna use help you live longer?
Regular sauna use is consistently linked to a lower risk of early death and heart problems in studies following large numbers of people over many years, but whether the sauna actually causes this has not been proven. For healthy adults, it is a safe addition to an active lifestyle, not a replacement for one.