June 26/Miami/Herald-Tribune -- New research, which involved more than 400,000 people in a 14-year observational study, found, when smoking and many other factors known to influence health and longevity were taken into account, coffee drinkers were living somewhat longer than abstainers. Further, the more coffee consumed each day -- up to a point, at least -- the greater the benefit to longevity.
The observed benefit of coffee drinking was not enormous -- a death rate among coffee drinkers that was 10-15% lower than among abstainers. However, the findings are certainly reassuring, and given how many Americans drink coffee, the numbers of lives affected may be quite large.