Scientists from Jinan University found that drinking unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee is linked to a lower risk of death.
As the world’s most famous beverage, coffee has had a hot-and-cold reputation when it comes to health benefits.
Black coffee is nearly calorie-free, with a minimal amount of protein and no carbs or fat.
Coffee contains a small number of vitamins and minerals like potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, folate, and choline.
Scientists have found drinking two to five daily cups of coffee may protect against heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers, but too much can cause problems like anxiety, nervousness, and insomnia.
Previous studies also have suggested a link between coffee drinking and a reduced risk for death.
But these studies did not distinguish between sugar-sweetened coffee, artificially sweetened coffee, and unsweetened coffee.
In this study, researchers aimed to examine the associations between drinking different types of coffee and death risk.
They used data from a total of 171, 616 people without heart disease or cancer at the beginning of the study and followed them for about 7 years.
The team estimated the drinking of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee from self-report surveys.
During the follow-up period, 3177 deaths were recorded (including 1725 cancer deaths and 628 heart disease deaths).
The team found U-shaped associations of unsweetened coffee, sugar-sweetened coffee, and artificially sweetened coffee with death.
Compared with people who did not drink coffee, people who drank any amounts of unsweetened coffee had lower death risks.
The team also found that people who drank 1.5 to 3.5 daily cups of coffee sweetened with sugar were less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee.
But the association between artificially sweetened coffee and mortality was not strong.
The team also found the association of coffee drinking with death risk from cancer and heart disease was largely consistent with that of general death risk.
Similar associations were also found for instant, ground, and decaffeinated coffee.
Based on the findings, the team suggests that moderate drinking of unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was linked to a lower risk for death.
The research is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and was conducted by Dan Liu et al.
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