Coffee and Alcohol = Living Longer?

Above, yours truly having a morning cup of coffee in Tokyo. 

Here's something that I would never have considered.

Drinking coffee and alcohol can actually help people live longer.

According to an article in Travel + Leisure:

You may want to rethink your New Year’s resolutions. A new study suggests that drinking alcohol and coffee may help you live longer. 

Perhaps coming as good news in the break between Christmas and New Year’s, a study from the University of California Irvine suggests that people who “drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained.” 

“I have no explanation for it, but I do firmly believe that modest drinking improves longevity,” Dr. Claudia Kawas, one of the study’s main researchers, said earlier this year at a conference for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

The operative word in this finding is, of course, moderate. According to the study, those who drank only two glasses of wine or beer per day decreased chances of premature death by 18 percent. Two cups of coffee per day decreased chances by 10 percent.

I usually have a glass of wine with dinner and I am a definitely a coffee-drinker. Maybe I'm doing something right.

To read more, go here.