Regular Coffee Consumption May Keep You Spry In Old Age

Coffee has long been the go-to morning ritual to provide you the get-up-and-go you need to attack the day. But its mobilizing properties may have compounding effects over a lifetime of consumption. A new study finds that drinking coffee and tea in midlife are associated with a decreased risk of frailty later on.

As reported by SciTechDaily, researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore examined health information and coffee drinking habits of over 12,000 individuals that took part in the 20-year Singapore Chinese Health Study.

Starting in the early ‘90s, participants between the ages of 45 and 74 (average age 53) underwent baseline interviews to learn their caffeine and food habits—both frequency and portion—as well as their “sociodemographic characteristics, medical history, height and weight, dietary habits, physical activities, and sleep duration.” Then in late ‘00s, the first follow-up interview catalogued the participants’ weights. For the final interview, between 2014 and 2017 when they were at an average age of 73, participants underwent a more robust examination. Along with recording their weight, participants were given a handgrip strength test and a “time up-and-go” (TUG) test as well as asked, “do you feel full of energy?”

 

To be considered physically frail, participants had to meet two of four criteria: more than 10% weight loss between follow ups, weakest quintile in the handgrip test, slowest quintile of the TUG test, and answering “yes” to the energy question.

When categorizing participants by caffeine intake, researchers found that “drinking coffee, black tea, or green tea at midlife was independently associated with a significantly reduced likelihood of physical frailty at late life.” In particular, those who drank four or more cups of coffee a day had “significantly reduced odds.”

While further investigation into the mechanisms leading to the outcome need to be done, researchers suggest that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of the polyphenols in coffee—which have a host of health benefits—as well as caffeine’s ability to “increase proliferation in muscle cells and improve muscle weight” (per tests in lab mice) may be at play.

Still, it’s a good enough reason not only to drink coffee today, but in perpetuity.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.