Years of life spent on an office chair or couch may have fatal health effects in the long run – but the way to balance a harmful lifestyle may be to curl up with a cup of plain coffee.
A study of more than 10,000 people in the United States found that people who drink coffee daily may be protected against the negative effects of sitting for six or more hours a day.
Compared to people who don’t drink coffee and sit a lot, sedentary coffee drinkers are 1.58 times less likely to die from any cause after 13 years.
Scientists from Soochow University in China say their study is to assess for the first time how the health benefits of coffee may counteract the increased risk of death associated with prolonged sitting.
By analyzing nationally representative long-term health data from the United States, the team found that coffee drinking substantially abolished the association between sedentary behavior, death from cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality.
That’s pretty incredible considering the research even exercises may not fully protect against the long-term health effects of prolonged sitting, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke.
Of the total 10,639 participants included in the current study, Vola snake that sat for more than eight hours a day was at increased risk death from any cause and death from circulatory system diseases, compared to those who sat less than four hours a day.
This confirms previous research, but here’s the really engaging part that no other study has identified before: the harm from sitting existed “only among adults who did not drink coffee.”
Those sedentary participants who he did to drink coffee benefited from a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease regardless of how many cups they drank per day.
What’s more, for people who drank the most coffee (over two and a half cups a day), the risk of death from any cause was also lower compared to people who did not drink coffee but also sat for at least six hours.
It was found that caffeine in the blood reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease.
Even decaffeinated coffee is available opulent in antioxidants which can aid speed up your metabolism and reduce inflammation. Some compounds in a cup of joe may as well protect the brain from degenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s disease.
These are really promising associations, but the details of coffee’s health benefits, such as ideal dosing, require further research.
A study conducted earlier this year found that people with colorectal cancer who drank at least five cups a day were 32% less likely to have the disease come back compared to those who drank less than two cups a day.
Moreover, the same study also found that three to five cups of coffee per day was associated with the greatest reduction in mortality of all causes. However, after more than five cups, the benefits decreased.
“Given that coffee is a convoluted compound, further research is needed to discover this miraculous compound” – Soochow scientists conclude.
The study was published in BMC Public Health.
