Harvard study: Coffee, not tea, for longevity
New Harvard research suggests the bean > the leaf — but with another sobering twist.
Takeaways:
New Harvard research shows a significant connection between drinking coffee in midlife and reaching age 70 in good all-around health
Tea drinkers didn’t get the same benefit, and soda drinkers tended to age worse
The media covered the obvious news but failed to explore the spit-out-your-coffee (not tea) “healthy aging” finding this study noted only in passing
New research from Harvard and the University of Toronto suggests a definitive association between coffee drinking in midlife and reaching age 70 in good health and free of chronic disease.
The study concluded that the people whom it studied — 47,000 nurses, all women, mostly white — who reached age 70 in good health (see below for what that means, exactly) consumed significantly more caffeine than their less-healthy peers during midlife, which the study defined as between ages 45 and 60.
These findings are notable because they’re based on a longitudinal study (which has not yet been peer reviewed or published), meaning it examined data from these American nurses over a significant time period: three decades, from 1984 to 2016.
Major media reported this coffee-longevity association this week.
But, similar to an earlier Harvard study I wrote about in March, the entire mediascape failed — again — to highlight the most surprising finding, which the study itself glossed over. It’s not about coffee or tea.