Two coffees a day could help you live longer, research suggests

Drinking as little as two cups of coffee a day could increase your life expectancy by up to two years, new research has revealed.

As if you needed another excuse to sup a cup of joe, new findings, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, has found that a twice daily caffeine hit could help you to live longer.

The research, conducted by analysing previous studies on the benefits of drinking coffee, looked at 40 studies which included 3,852,651 subjects and 450,256 causes of death.

On analysing the results researchers discovered that coffee consumption had an inverse association with all-cause mortality, “irrespective of age, overweight status, alcohol drinking, smoking status, and caffeine content of coffee.”

In other words drinking coffee can play a role in helping people to live longer.

According to researchers, moderate coffee consumption, such as two to four cups a day, “was associated with reduced all-cause and cause-specific mortality, compared to no coffee consumption.”

READ MORE: There’s a reason you’re either team tea or team coffee

The good news for coffee fans doesn’t end there as study authors also believe that in addition to increasing life expectancy, drinking coffee also reduces the risk of developing and dying from cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes or respiratory disease.

The study was conducted to examine the association between coffee and mortality “in various subpopulations by characteristics of subjects,” such as ageing, obesity and other lifestyle factors that impact mortality.

According to the results, the the link between coffee and mortality in Europe and Asia was stronger than the association in the US.

READ MORE: What is bulletproof coffee and why are nutritionists warning against it?

This isn’t the first time we’ve been celebrating a potential link between coffee consumption and life expectancy.

A previous study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that besides making us feel a little wired, drinking three cups of coffee a day could add years to our lives.

After adjusting for lifestyle factors, such as smoking and diet, the scientists found that those who drank the most coffee had a lower risk of death in comparison to those who spent their lives coffee free.

Dr Marc Gunter of the IARC and lead author of the study told Sky News: “We found that higher coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause, and specifically for circulatory diseases, and digestive diseases.

“Importantly, these results were similar across all of the 10 European countries, with variable coffee drinking habits and customs.

“Our study also offers important insights into the possible mechanisms for the beneficial health effects of coffee.”

And last December further research found that people who drink two to three cups per day have a 12 percent lower risk of early death than people who don't drink coffee at all.