Women who drink coffee

💃🏻☕😊Good news, for those who do.

Another day, another coffee study — this one led by a Harvard researcher who analyzed data on 47,513 women and their coffee-drinking habits over decades, and found something remarkable about what happens to them as they age.

Researchers determined that a little over 3,706 of the original group, whose coffee consumption was tracked beginning in 1984, were still alive in 2016, and were living lives that fit the researchers’ definition of “healthy aging.”

This included things like:

• Being 70 years old or older

• Self-reporting good mental and physical health

• Having no reported memory problems or cognitive impairment

• Being free of 11 chronic diseases — among them: “cancer, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis”

• Now comes the really good news for anyone — but especially women — who drink a lot of coffee.

More coffee? More healthy aging

In short, the women in the study who habitually drank at least one cup of coffee a day were statistically much more likely to be among those 3,706 women who stayed strong, mentally sharp, and healthy as they grew older.

“While past studies have linked coffee to individual health outcomes, our study is the first to assess coffee’s impact across multiple domains of aging over three decades,” said presenting author Sara Mahdavi, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine.

The findings were set to be presented earlier this month at Nutrition 2025, the annual conference of the American Society for Nutrition.

Coffee, not soda

The study was based on data from the Nurses’ Health Study, one of the largest longitudinal studies ever undertaken that investigated risk factors for major chronic diseases.

Beginning with married women who worked in the United States as registered nurses in the year 1976, the study initially was intended to track the long-term effects of oral contraceptives. Over time, the data collected was greatly expanded — and among many other things began to include coffee, tea, and soda intake.

Here, the researchers went back and correlated the caffeine and coffee habits that Nurses’ Health Study participants reported with whether they were among the 3,706 “healthy agers.” The results were remarkable:

First, the women’s likelihood of being in the “healthy agers” group went up by between 2 percent and 5 percent for every extra cup of coffee they drank a day on average, up to five small cups of coffee (eight ounces) per day.

Second, only caffeinated coffee mattered; drinking decaffeinated coffee or tea had no significant association with increasing the likelihood of healthy aging.

Finally, drinking soda — even soda with caffeine — was worse than drinking nothing at all in terms of the likelihood of healthy aging. In fact, for every 12-ounce soda the women reported drinking per day, their odds of being in the healthy agers cohort dropped by 20 percent to 26 percent.

The researchers also controlled for other factors including age, BMI, whether the women smoked and drank alcohol, along with “physical activity, education, and dietary protein.”

“In addition to the large sample size and 30 years of follow-up, we assessed several different aspects of longevity and healthy aging as well as very comprehensive information on nutritional and lifestyle habits that were collected every four years after the initiation of the study,” Mahdavi said.

Not the first time

We should acknowledge loud and clear that this study just shows correlation, not causation. For example, it’s possible that women who drank lots of coffee also had some other factor in common that researchers didn’t identify, and that led to a higher likelihood of healthy aging.

That said, the new study takes its place as the latest in a long line of studies we’ve seen that suggest drinking coffee is related to some very powerful, positive health effects.

Among them:

• A 2018 study of 500,000 people in JAMA Internal Medicine found an unmistakable across-the-board increase in longevity among people who drink lots of coffee.

• A study last year on the coffee consumption habits of 40,725 Americans who were included in the 19-year-long U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that drinking coffee specifically in the morning was associated with a lower risk of death or cardiovascular disease.

• A study of lifestyle, health, and biographical data published in 2022 relating to 171,616 people in Great Britain found that both men and women between the ages of 37 and 73 who drank between 1.5 and 3.5 cups of coffee each day had up to a 30 percent lower chance of dying from any cause during the seven-year study period than those who did not.

• A 2023 study in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association followed the coffee habits of 12,583 participants over 20 years and determined that those who drank copious amounts of coffee were twice as likely to avoid becoming physically frail as they aged into their 70s.

• Maybe most intriguingly, a study of 347,077 coffee drinkers out of the University of South Australia in 2019 found that health benefits increase the more coffee people drink — but only up to five cups per day. Beyond that, the Australian researchers found, the risk of heart disease actually starts to increase.

Bottom line? Bottoms up

Ironically, and without even thinking about it, I realize that as I’ve sat here writing this article, I’ve drained a small cup of black coffee, refilled it, and drank about half the second cup.

All of which makes me appreciate these kinds of studies even more.

Isn’t it great to come across scientific studies that help justify some of the things we’re already doing?

Maybe you’ll join me in raising a glass to that. Or more to the point, a cup.

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7 other things worth knowing today

• Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday by the narrowest of margins, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. In the end that tally was 50-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. (Associated Press)

• The Trump administration explained new efforts to strip some Americans of their U.S. citizenship in a recently published Justice Department memo. The memo claims efforts will focus on naturalized citizens who are involved “in the commission of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, or other serious human rights abuses … [and] naturalized criminals, gang members, or, indeed, any individuals convicted of crimes who pose an ongoing threat to the US." (The Guardian)

• A record-low 58% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” (41%) or “very” (17%) proud to be an American, down nine percentage points from last year and five points below the prior low from 2020. In January 2001, when Gallup first asked Americans how proud they were, 87% said they were extremely or very proud. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the figure increased to 90%, and it held at that level or higher between 2002 and 2004. (Gallup)

• Tinder is testing out a new facial recognition feature as it seeks to reduce fraud and build trust among its customer base. The West Hollywood-based company, which is owned by online dating company Match Group, is now mandating that California users verify their identity through a feature called Face Check when setting up their accounts. (CBS News)

• Cracker Barrel Fans Mourn the Loss of That Old-Timey Feeling: Some diners are taking a dim view of the chain’s modern glow up; ‘It was just heartbreak.’ (The Wall Street Journal)

• Florida's condo crisis grows as a 75-year-old HOA goes bankrupt under $50M debt; experts warn more are at risk. (The Daily Mail)

• Women can be drafted into the Danish military as Russian aggression and military investment grow. “In the situation the world is in now, it’s needed,” said Katrine, a 20-year-old woman who volunteered before the recent rule change. “I think it’s only fair and right that women participate equally with men.” (Associated Press)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Candice Picard on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.