After a delightful holiday season, I’m feeling well-rested if not a bit doughy around the edges, thanks in no small part all the eating and drinking (and coffee) entailed in what is essentially an extended month-long hang with friends and family. Normally, at the strike of the New Year, I’d decided it’s time to get my literal ass in shape, but after reading a study from the University of California, Irvine, I’m saying, “nah.” As detailed by Travel + Leisure, the study suggests that drinking coffee and alcohol (and having a little extra weight) may lead to a longer life.
Performed by UCI’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, the 90+ Study is the work of Claudia Kawas, MD; Maria Corrada, ScD; Annlia Paganini-Hill, PhD; and Dana Greenia, RN, MS. In it, they followed the lives of over 1,600 nonagenarians starting in 2013 through a series of biannual checkups to help “determine which factors and life choices made people more likely to live past 90.”
The researchers found that participants who consumed two cups of coffee a day were associated with a 10% decrease in mortality, and those who drank “only two glasses of wine or beer” per day were associated with an 18% decrease. Interestingly enough, they also found that people “overweight in their 70s lived longer than normal or underweight people did.” But Travel + Leisure does note that exercising regularly and “maintaining a regular hobby” helped individuals avoid premature death.
So eat, drink, and be merry, and rethink what a “beach bod” is. You can’t go to the beach if you’re dead. Happy New Year!
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
