Research

Mixed

Among adults aged 50-71, higher coffee consumption (≥2 cups/day) is inversely associated with total mortality and mortality from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries, diabetes, and infections, but not cancer, after adjusting for confounders like smoking.

If you drink coffee, continuing to drink 2 or more cups per day is associated with a lower risk of death from various causes, including heart disease and stroke, in this large study. The benefits appear to hold for both men and women, regardless of whether the coffee is caffeinated or decaffeinated. However, this is an association, not proof of causation, and individual tolerance to caffeine should still be considered.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
after adjustment for tobacco-smoking status and other potential confounders, there was a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality... Inverse associations were observed for deaths due to heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, but not for deaths due to cancer.
Neal D. Freedman et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 2012

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort study (NIH-AARP) with over 400,000 participants and rigorous adjustment for confounders, though causality is not proven.

Source

Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality

Neal D. Freedman et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 2012

DOI 10.1056/nejmoa1112010

cohort · n=402260Cited 599×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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