Scientists wake up to coffee’s benefits

Drinking three to four cups of coffee a day is associated with health benefits across a range of diseases and conditions. A review published in The BMJ this week identified 201 meta-analyses of observational research and 17 meta-analyses of interventional research and found that coffee consumption was more often associated with benefit than harm over various health outcomes.1

The researchers found that drinking three cups of coffee a day was associated with the greatest benefit in terms of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, when compared with not drinking coffee. Consumption at this level was associated with a 19% lower risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease (relative risk 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.72 to 0.90), a 16% lower risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (relative risk 0.84, 0.71 to 0.99), and a 30% lower risk of stroke mortality (0.70, 0.80 to 0.90). Increasing consumption to more than three cups a day was …