Elderly people who are used to drinking a few cups of coffee a day have a low mortality rate.

A study of 400,000 people in the United States showed that older adults who drank a few cups of coffee a day had lower mortality rates than their peers who drank no coffee at all or very little coffee.

Writing in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, US researchers used US nutritional intake data to select 400,000 middle-aged and elderly people aged 50 to 71 who reported their food intake annually since 1995 and followed them until 2008.

During the 14-year period, 13 percent of men and 10 percent of women in the control group who drank no coffee died; 19 percent of men and 15 percent of women in the control group who drank more than six cups of coffee a day died.

The "apparent outcome" seems to be that coffee drinking is associated with higher mortality. But the researchers noted that coffee drinkers tended to smoke, drink alcohol and eat red meat, and when these lifestyle factors were removed from the results, coffee's effects reversed.

Further research found that men who drank more than two cups of coffee a day at any rate had a 10 percent lower risk of death and women a 16 percent lower risk.

Coffee drinking may lead to a lower incidence of some diseases or accidents, thus reducing mortality, Reuters reported Monday, citing a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. Coffee consumption was significantly associated with lower rates of heart disease, stroke, infection, injury, and accidents.

However, the researchers caution against issuing this conclusion, arguing that the limitations of the study are "general surveys" and not academic studies because it has not been determined which components of coffee reduce mortality.

In fact, the academic community has studied coffee and health in various ways for many years, but the conclusions are contradictory. Some studies have found that coffee reduces the risk of diabetes, while others have concluded that coffee increases the risk of heart disease. (Xinhua) Source Yangcheng Evening News