В ходе крупного исследования, охватившего почти 46 000 взрослых американцев, было установлено, что у людей, употреблявших черный кофе или кофе с минимальным количеством сахара и сливок, вероятность смерти в течение следующего десятилетия была ниже. Те, кто ...
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A large look at nearly 46,000 American adults found that people who drank black coffee, or coffee with only tiny amounts of sugar and cream, had a lower chance of dying over the next decade. Those who loaded their cups with more sugar or fat did not. The gap raises a plain question: does the coffee help, or do the extras simply undo whatever good it might do? Readers can weigh the numbers and decide.
The work comes from researchers at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. They used nine rounds of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2018, linked to death records. Over a median of about 9 to 11 years, 7,074 people in the group died. The pattern held after the team adjusted for age, sex, race, income, smoking, exercise, and other factors they could measure.
What the Numbers Show
Drinking one to two cups of caffeinated coffee a day lined up with a 16 percent lower risk of death from any cause compared with drinking none. Two to three cups pushed the figure to 17 percent. Past three cups the extra gain stopped. The same link appeared for heart-disease deaths, but not for cancer deaths. Decaf showed no clear tie, though few people in the sample drank it often enough for a firm answer.
The catch sat in the cup. Black coffee, or coffee with less than 2.5 grams of added sugar (about half a teaspoon) and less than 1 gram of saturated fat per 8-ounce serving, matched the 14 percent lower all-cause death risk. Once sugar or fat climbed above roughly 5 percent of a day’s limit, the link vanished. First author Bingjie Zhou put it simply: few earlier studies had measured the exact amounts people add. “Our results align with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend limiting added sugar and saturated fat,” Zhou said.
Senior author Fang Fang Zhang noted that coffee is one of the world’s most common drinks and nearly half of U.S. adults have at least one cup a day. “The health benefits of coffee might be attributable to its bioactive compounds, but our results suggest that the addition of sugar and saturated fat may reduce the mortality benefits,” Zhang said in the university release.
Full details sit in the July 2025 issue of The Journal of Nutrition. The abstract is open at the journal site and a free version is on PubMed Central. The university summary is at Tufts Now.
Why Additives Might Matter
Coffee carries hundreds of plant compounds, including polyphenols that act as antioxidants. These have been tied in other work to lower rates of type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and some heart problems. A plain cup also has almost no calories. Heavy sugar and cream change the picture. Sugar can raise blood glucose and insulin. Saturated fat from cream adds calories and, in large amounts, can affect blood fats. The Tufts team did not prove that sugar or fat blocks the plant compounds. They only showed that the death-risk gap disappears once the extras rise.
One open question is whether people who prefer black coffee already live differently. They may smoke less, move more, or eat fewer ultra-processed foods. The researchers adjusted for many of those habits, yet leftover differences can still exist. Observational studies can only show that two things travel together; they cannot prove one causes the other. A person who switches from sweet lattes to black coffee might also change other parts of the day. The data cannot separate those moves.
Earlier large reviews have linked moderate coffee intake to longer life across many countries. A 2022 UK Biobank analysis of more than 171,000 people found a similar pattern: coffee with little sugar tied to lower death risk, while sweetened coffee did not. Those findings sit beside the Tufts numbers and point the same way, yet they share the same limits.
What the Study Could Not Answer
The survey asked people what they ate and drank on one day. Memory is imperfect, and one day may not match a usual week. The team notes this measurement error. They also could not track whether people changed their coffee habits after the survey. Decaf drinkers were too few for clear results. Cancer deaths showed no link either way. Heart-disease benefit weakened past three cups. None of these gaps erase the main pattern, but they keep the story incomplete.
Critics of such work often point out that coffee drinkers as a group can differ from non-drinkers in ways that are hard to measure fully. Some enjoy better sleep, lower stress, or stronger social habits. Others simply tolerate caffeine well. The reverse can also be true: people who feel unwell may stop coffee. The Tufts authors controlled for many measured factors, yet residual confounding remains possible. Readers who want certainty will not find it here. The study offers a consistent association, not a prescription.
Related work on the same site has looked at coffee and the gut. A recent piece, Daily Coffee and the Gut: What Studies Show, and What They Skip, reviews shifts in microbes and compounds such as chlorogenic acids. Another notes that morning-only coffee drinking has been tied to a 31 percent lower heart-disease death risk in one analysis: Morning Coffee Linked to 31% Lower Heart Disease Death Risk. Those pieces add context but rest on the same kind of watching data.
Practical Numbers People Can Check
Low sugar in the study meant under 2.5 grams per 8-ounce cup—roughly half a teaspoon. Low saturated fat meant under 1 gram, about one tablespoon of half-and-half or five tablespoons of 2 percent milk. Most flavored cafe drinks sit well above those lines. A typical sweetened latte or mocha can deliver several teaspoons of sugar and several grams of fat. The Tufts results suggest those versions do not carry the same statistical link to lower death risk.
The authors do not claim black coffee will make anyone live longer. They report that, in this large group, the people who drank it that way had fewer deaths. Zhang’s remark keeps the door open: the plant compounds may help, and the extras may blunt that help. Whether the compounds themselves are the active part, or whether they simply mark other healthy choices, is not settled. Future trials that assign people to black coffee versus sweetened coffee for years could test the idea more directly. No such trial is under way at this scale.
Other research has tied coffee to lower frailty in older adults and to mood shifts through the gut-brain path. Those findings appear in separate cohorts and share the observational limit. Caffeine can activate cell pathways involved in stress response and repair, yet sugar can raise oxidative stress. The two effects may cancel in the same cup. The Tufts paper does not measure those pathways; it only records who lived and who did not.
How to Read the Claim
The 14 percent and 17 percent figures are relative risks, not absolute guarantees. If a non-coffee drinker has a certain chance of dying in the next decade, the black-coffee group showed a lower chance by those amounts after adjustments. Absolute differences depend on age and other risks. A healthy 40-year-old has a small baseline risk; a 70-year-old with heart disease has a larger one. The study does not break the numbers that way for every reader.
Mainstream coverage has stayed close to the university release. Alternative outlets have stressed the sugar finding more sharply. Both start from the same data. The difference lies in how much weight each places on the “may reduce the benefits” clause. The raw association is clear in the hazard ratios published in the journal: black and low-additive coffee carried hazard ratios around 0.86; higher-additive coffee did not. Readers can look at the abstract and the full text and form their own view.
No single food or drink decides lifespan. Smoking, blood pressure, movement, and overall diet carry larger effects in most reviews. Coffee sits among the smaller, consistent signals. The Tufts work adds a useful detail: the signal appears strongest when the cup stays close to black. Whether that detail reflects chemistry, habit, or both is still open. The numbers are public. The choice of how to drink the next cup remains personal.
Original source: Tufts University announcement, 16 June 2025, Hold the Cream and Sugar: Black Coffee Linked to Lower Risk of Death. Primary paper: Zhou B, et al., The Journal of Nutrition, 2025, DOI 10.1016/j.tjnut.2025.05.004.
Disclaimer for fact-checkers: This summary rests on an observational cohort study. It shows association, not proof of cause. Residual confounding and self-report error are acknowledged limits. Primary data and the journal abstract are linked above. Secondary reports vary in emphasis; readers should check the original paper.
