Can Coffee Perk Up Your Heart and Life Span?

Folks who drink two or three cups of coffee daily appear to live longer than people who don’t care for the beverage, new research shows.

Coffee lovers also seemed to have healthier hearts, which might contribute to the longevity boost, said the team of Australian investigators.

The findings were published Sept. 27 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

“Ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause,” study author physician Peter Kistler, of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute in Melbourne, said in a journal news release.

While other studies have suggested that the coffee habit might be a healthy one, Kistler’s team said there’s not been much investigation into the health effects of various forms of coffee.

To try to find out, they analyzed data from the ongoing UK Biobank database, looking at data on people aged 40 to 69. In this study, the average age was 58 and the Australian researchers focused on levels of daily coffee intake and life span, as well as heart disease, heart failure and stroke.

Overall, data on almost 450,000 Britons was included in the research. Regarding daily coffee intake, participants were divided into six groups: No coffee; less than a cup a day; one cup per day; two to three cups per day; four to five cups per day; and over five cups per day.