"those who drank more coffee were less likely to die"

Aren't we all, regardless of what we do, equally likely to die?

What about doing a similar study with tea? The box of Lipton's tea is covered with the good qualities of tea...antioxidants and all that. I switched to de-caf tea a couple years ago and feel much better. The first couple days of de-toxing caffeine was brutal -- banging, blinding headaches.

However, everything in moderation, and we're all going to die some day anyway.

Thanks for your posting. Should have made it clearer that the increased risk of death the researchers found was during the follow-up period -- 24 years for the women and 18 years for the men.

wiredog, you couldn't figure out that they were less likely to die -- over the duration of the study??? Come on now. Think!

Ryan, couldn't you figure out that wiredog knows that and was making a joke??? Come on now. Think!

I HEART COFFEE!

I wonder if any other health consequence appeared at some cutoff point, like what happens if you drink 10 cups per day? 20? Eventually your head must explode, or maybe your liver? It would be interesting to know what is next to give out and at what level of coffee consumption. In the mean time, my grandmother drank coffee every day and lived very long.

Nobody has ever gotten out of the world alive. How can coffee drinkers be less likely to die?

I've heard there are a lot of micro-roasters in the Portland area that support sustainable agriculture and only sell organic and "fair trade" coffee produced by small farm co-ops in Central and South America. That allows coffee producers to generate a living wage instead of tearing down the trees for pasture. So if the coffee is good for you, it's a win-win for consumers and producers.

I know Sweet Maria's sells a lot of fair-trade coffee...Trader Joe's does also. I also tried Badbeard's coffee recently and their Mexican terruno nayarita decaf was superb...you can't tell the difference between this decaf and regular coffee.

I too switched to decaf and am much happier...no more crashing in the late afternoon. I'm glad the same benefits are in decaf.

"The reduced risk ranged from 7 percent for women who drank five to seven cups a week to 26 percent who drank four or five cups a day."

Did *Bucks pay for this study? It seems that the risk to your wallet is greater than your waistline if you follow this argument.

Another silly study. To say that people who drink coffee " are less likely to die" is absurd. Everyone dies, no matter what they drink or eat.

To The Old Tea Bag, Coffee has far more antioxidents than tea. And, if you want to get off caffeine, all you do is drink less, like instead of two cups, drink one, then the next day drink a half a cup. the next day, you should be fine.

This study was obviously started many years ago. At that time didn't they used to recommend people with heart disease to reduce or eliminate the consume of caffeine? Did they account for that? Could they just be seeing that people with heart disease that eventually died of it, had stopped drinking coffee on their doctors' advice?

u all must read the book on coffee and health at www.coffeeishealth.org - just for coffee drinkers....

I don't think wiredog was being stupid or funny - I appreciate his comment as a heads up on the writing - I go to the newspaper expecting good writing, precise, not sloppy

Mr. Rob Stein always writes about mortality in this laughable way, "more likely to die, less likely to die." He has never grasped the precise expression of mortality, which should be reported as the risk of dying within a certain time period in some studies, or premature death in one group compared with another in other studies.

Hmmm, maybe that explains why my aunt, who chain smoked unfiltered camel cigarettes her whole life, lived to 86. She drank pots and pots of black coffee with the cigarettes!

So, what is it in coffee that makes me less likely to die? Polyphenols. Chlorogenic acid, carbolic acid. Relatively weak polyphenols, which is why you have to drink so much to get the benefits. Still, coffee is the main source of polyphenols in the SAD. It's clearly better than nothing.

There's some facinating new animal research on the combination of coffee polyphenols with stronger ones. Specific combinations of polyphenols are already reversing atherosclerosis in animals, according to Italian scientists. Reversing. Oddly enough, clearing arterial plaque makes these animals less likely to die.

When you read next week's big health story, ask yourself- what is in that apple that keeps the doctor away? What is it in the red wine, the fruits and vegetables, the green and white tea, the purple grape juice, the pomegranate, the yellow curry that's so healthy? What is the common denominator?

Polyphenols.

If you believe that there is nothing that makes you less likely to die, I guess there's no need to read next week's health story. But if you are interested in such things, there is a quiet revolution going on. Harvard, MIT, USC, UC, Cornell, UMass, USDA are studying polyphenols in cancer, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's, aging, and life span extension. Revolutionary stuff. Take advantage.

The article doesn't really mean that coffee drinkers are less likely to die, it simply implies they are less likely to die of HEART DISEASE.

This is so great. I drink a thick cup of black coffee every morning. Now I feel justified! Thank you for publishing this article.