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Does drinking coffee help you live longer?

What you hear: “Drinking coffee every day helps you live longer.”

What the studies found

An umbrella review of 201 meta-analyses of observational studies found coffee was more often linked with benefit than harm, with the biggest drop at 3 to 4 cups a day, including about 17% lower risk of death from any cause compared with no coffee. In the UK Biobank study of about 498,000 adults followed for 10 years, coffee drinkers had roughly 6% to 16% lower death rates than non-drinkers, including decaf drinkers. These are associations: coffee drinkers may differ in health and habits in ways studies can't fully adjust for, and the review authors called for trials to test whether the link is causal. Coffee does not appear to be harmful for most adults at usual amounts.

Take care: In pregnancy, higher coffee intake was linked with low birth weight, preterm birth and pregnancy loss, so pregnant people should limit caffeine; caffeine can also disturb sleep and raise heart rate in sensitive people.

What you could do

If you enjoy coffee and sleep well, a few cups a day is fine to keep; there's no strong reason to start for longevity.

See it in the habit library, with what it means for your own longevity score.

Not medical advice. General information from published studies, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. Talk with your doctor before starting a supplement or changing a medicine, especially if you are pregnant, take other medicines or have a health condition.

How we judged it

Partly true: Some truth, but oversold as usually said. We judge the claim as it is usually said online, not the habit itself. Trials assign people at random, so they can show cause; observed studies follow people and show a link, not proof. Last checked: October 2026.

The studies, in their own words

1. Poole et al. BMJ 2017

   There was evidence of a non-linear association between consumption and some outcomes, with summary estimates indicating largest relative risk reduction at intakes of three to four cups a day versus none, including all cause mortality (relative risk 0.83 (95% confidence interval 0.79 to 0.88)

2. Poole et al. BMJ 2017

   Robust randomised controlled trials are needed to understand whether the observed associations are causal.

3. Poole et al. BMJ 2017

   except in pregnancy, where high versus low/no consumption was associated with low birth weight (odds ratio 1.31, 95% confidence interval 1.03 to 1.67), preterm birth in the first (1.22, 1.00 to 1.49) and second (1.12, 1.02 to 1.22) trimester, and pregnancy loss (1.46, 1.06 to 1.99).

4. Loftfield et al. JAMA Intern Med 2018

   Using non-coffee drinkers as the reference group, HRs for drinking less than 1, 1, 2 to 3, 4 to 5, 6 to 7, and 8 or more cups per day were 0.94 (95% CI, 0.88-1.01), 0.92 (95% CI, 0.87-0.97), 0.88 (95% CI, 0.84-0.93), 0.88 (95% CI, 0.83-0.93), 0.84 (95% CI, 0.77-0.92), and 0.86 (95% CI, 0.77-0.95), respectively.

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