In a recent article published in the New England of Medicine on May 17, 2012, researchers Neal D. Freedman, Ph.D., Yikyung Park, Sc.D., Christian C. Abnet, Ph.D., Albert R. Hollenbeck, Ph.D., and Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D. have looked over 400,000 individuals, aged 50-71 years old, for over 13 years and have found that : Those who consumed coffee regularly- had an overall reduced mortality rate in the following stats: those who consumed 6 or more cups of coffee/ day have shown to decrease mortality by 10% in men and by15% in women, compared to those who do not consume coffee. Consumption of 1 cup f coffee / day decreased the mortality rate among men by 6% and among women- by 5%. When "cleaning the research data off individual's parameters which could have messed up the stats results of parameters such as: heart disease, lung disease, infections, accidents, injuries, socioeconomically condition, smoking and physical activity - did not change the result of the study and the stats remained the same!
The researchers suggested that some of the thousand ingredients present in the coffee beans include strong anti oxidants which protect the cells from cancerous and various inflammatory and chronic destructive conditions thus prolonged the life expectancy.
This is considered to be the most elaborate research study done looking into the relations between coffee consumption and mortality rate.
Read more at:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1112010