For years the question has been: Is it OK to drink coffee?

A sensational new study has turned that around, by asking: Is it OK not to drink coffee?

Answer: Not if you’re sitting down all day.

In other words, according to the research, drinking coffee appears to be protective against early death, and death from heart disease.

How did they learn this?

The daily sitting time and coffee consumption (and long-term consequences) of almost 10,000 US participants was analysed.

Firstly, the scientists found that “sitting for more than eight hours a day was linked to an increased risk for both all-cause and heart disease-related mortality compared to sitting less than four hours daily”.

This isn’t a great surprise. As previously reported – see here and here – sitting down for hours at a time is the new smoking.

Why? Because it carries a heightened risk of cancers, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure (which in turn carries a higher risk of stroke), obesity, osteoporosis and heart disease.

However, the researchers found that participants who sat for six hours or more a day, and drank coffee, were 1.58 times less likely to die from all causes than non-coffee drinkers of all causes, for as many as 13 years later.

This research came out of the School of Public Health at the Medical College of Soochow University in Suzhou, China.

How significant is this?

The long-standing remedy for sedentary behaviour is an obvious one: Get up and move around.

However, the efficacy of exercise in offsetting the damage done sitting around remains a matter of argument.

As Science Alert, in its report on the findings, commented: The study “essentially cancels out the association between sedentary lifestyles, death from cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality”.

This is “pretty incredible given that studies suggest even bouts of exercise may not fully protect against the long-term health downsides of prolonged sitting, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke”.

In other words, if the findings are correct – and the concept certainly needs to be rigorously tested – coffee may be enough to protect us against the ravages of inactivity.

In the meantime, the findings will be taken with a grain of salt.

What the researcher says

Dr Bingyan Li is professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene at Soochow, and corresponding author of the paper.

She pointed to previous research that suggests “coffee consumption reduces the risk of metabolic syndrome, which aggravates inflammation”.

An inverse relationship between coffee consumption with all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality “has been found in adults in many studies,” she said.

Coffee as a heart starter

Can it be that coffee gives a good workout for the heart while you’re seated at your favourite cafe? That’s what is implied in the research.

In 2020, an Australian study was presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 71st Annual Scientific Session.

It suggested that drinking coffee – “particularly two to three cups a day” – was associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

It was also  linked with a lower risk of dangerous heart rhythms. And with living longer.

Dr Peter M Kistler is professor and head of arrhythmia research at the Baker Heart Institute in Melbourne.

He was also the study’s senior author.

“Because coffee can quicken heart rate, some people worry that drinking it could trigger or worsen certain heart issues. This is where general medical advice to stop drinking coffee may come from,” Kistler said.

“But our data suggest that daily coffee intake shouldn’t be discouraged.”

Instead, it can be included “as a part of a healthy diet for people with and without heart disease”.

There are serious caveats here, of course. Too much of a good thing is to be avoided, caffeine being the cause of concern.

Too much of it can cause anxiety, insomnia, headaches, stomach irritation and an irregular heartbeat.