Drinking one and a half to three and a half cups of coffee per day could add years to your life, a large study suggests.
A Chinese research team followed 171,000 people for seven years and found that those who drank coffee regularly had about a third lower risk of death than those who didn't.
It doesn't matter whether the coffee is plain or sweetened with sugar, they added.
Several studies have pointed to coffee's potential health benefits, from reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes to making you less likely to become depressed.
Scientists suspect this may be because the beans contain antioxidants that help reduce internal inflammation and cell damage.
Scientists have found that drinking up to three and a half cups of coffee every day can make someone live longer than a non-coffee drinker (stock image)
In the study, a team from Jinan University in Guangzhou, outside Hong Kong, analyzed data from the UK Biobank - a dataset containing medical and genetic data from more than half a million Britons - from 2009 to 2018.
Participants were on average about 56 years old and had no cancer or heart disease at the start of the study.
The amount of coffee consumed daily was measured at the start of the study.
The results showed that a total of 3,177 deaths were recorded during the study, including 1,725 from cancer and 628 from heart disease.
The researchers said their results showed those who had hot drinks had a "lower risk of all-cause mortality" than those who didn't.
That from Dr. A team led by Dan Liu of the university concluded: "Moderate consumption of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with a lower risk of death."
But the study was observational, meaning it couldn't determine whether drinking coffee actually caused the lower number of deaths, only making a correlation.
Additionally, the amount of coffee consumed per day was only measured at the start of the study, so changes over time could not be taken into account.
Several studies have pointed to the benefits of drinking coffee, although many others have been inconclusive.
Caffeine – in coffee – may help reduce inflammation and cell damage, which could protect against disease. It also helps keep people more alert.
But despite these benefits, it has also been linked to disrupted sleep patterns and risks during pregnancy.
