Everyone knows that drinking water is important, even if they don’t always put that knowledge to practice. This has led many to ask whether or not drinking coffee counts toward your daily hydration total. (Despite its mild diuretic qualities, the answer is yes, coffee counts.) And a new study finds that supplementing coffee and tea as part of daily hydration is associated with longer life.
As reported by Medical News Today, the study was recently published in the British Journal of Nutrition, where researchers examined the daily intake habits of over 180,000 adults over the course of 13 years. As part of the expansive UK Biobank, participants were tasked with filling out 24-hour dietary recall questionnaires at multiple points during the survey that included questions about how much water, coffee, and tea they had consumed that day.
They found that, first and foremost, adequate hydration, seven to eight drinks daily being the goal, is the key to an overall lower risk of mortality. More interesting, though, the also found that including coffee and tea into that total had a knock-on effect. According to the study, balancing “plain water with coffee and tea in a 2:3 ratio had the greatest reduction in mortality risk,” equating to a 28% decrease in death, regardless of the cause.
Despite the broad sample size, the study is only observational, meaning no causal link could be established. It could be the case, for instance that folks who drink more coffee and tea are doing so in replacement of harmful beverages like alcohol. Thus it isn’t the coffee or tea itself providing the benefit, it’s the forgoing the poison.
Still, all signs point to coffee being a vital part of a healthy lifestyle. Coffee, water, tea. Lather, rising, repeat ad finitum.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
