Here's some good news for coffee lovers. According to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who regularly drink coffee also tend to live longer.

For the study, researchers recruited 400,000 participants--the largest sample group involved in a study on coffee and longer life. After studying the difference between coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers, the study authors found out that the regular java drinkers had a lower risk of death.

At first, it seemed that coffee drinkers were more likely to die than non-coffee drinkers, but after taking their other lifestyle habits like smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating more red meat into account, the researchers noticed a pattern emerging. Apparently, each cup of coffee the participants drank a day contributed to lowering their death risk.

As wonderful as this discovery is, researchers still can’t say that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between coffee and longer life. At this point, what makes coffee good for consumers is still unclear, and more research needs to be done.

(Photo by Andres Nieto Porras via Flickr Creative Commons)