Tasty hot drink could prevent frailty in later life - and improve heart health
There is no doubt that we are a country that absolutely loves a hot beverage, with cups of tea practically our national drink. They are such a staple that to fail to offer someone a cup of something hot when they enter your home is basically tantamount to asking them to leave.
However, if anyone has ever told you to cool off on your caffeine intake, here is some great news, you can safely - and maybe a little smugly - let them know that it is actually pretty good for your health. While tea might hold a special place in the UK’s heart, coffee is a close second and globally an incredible two billion cups of the stuff are drunk on a daily basis.
A new study has shown that drinking coffee daily can actually hold off frailty in later life - and previous studies have shown that it can improve the health of your heart, amongst other benefits to your overall wellbeing. The recent study was conducted by the National University of Singapore over 20 years and measured the caffeine intake and its impact on 12,000 participants in the middle stage of life, between the ages of 45 to 74 years old.
It found that those who drank coffee and tea had "significantly significantly better physical function at late life." Coffee was the most popular caffeinated drink amongst the participants, with 84 per cent of them drinking it. There was also a smaller group of tea-drinkers, with 12 per cent opting for different teas as their caffeinated beverage of choice.
Of the coffee lovers that participated in the research, 68.5 per cent drank it on a daily basis, with 52.9 per cent having one cup each day, 42.2 per cent had between two and three cups of coffee a day, and a brave minority - 4.9 per cent - had four or more cups of coffee every day.
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Overall, the study has proved that amongst participants "drinking coffee, black tea or green tea at midlife were independently associated with significantly reduced likelihood of physical frailty at late life. Participants who drank four or more cups of coffee per day had significantly reduced odds of physical frailty at late life, compared to participants who did not drink coffee daily."
If you're not a fan of coffee, there is still some good news for you, because the participants who regularly drank tea also showed these benefits, with all "higher caffeine intake [being] associated with lower odds of physical frailty, regardless of the source of caffeine."
Previous studies have shown that coffee can also help keep your heart healthy, with one showing that light to moderate consumption - which they counted as between one to three cups a day - can lower the risk of heart disease and an early death.
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