Here's how six cups of coffee a day can help you to live longer

While coffee’s ability to make one sleep if they drink it later in the day ,ay be debatable, a new study suggests that it actually helps us live longer, by protecting against age-related conditions such as dementia, cancer and heart disease.

According to the study, coffee and its main ingredients, caffeine and plant-based compounds called polyphenols, are among the most researched items in our diet.

While the evidence is far from conclusive, a recent major investigation seems to have tilted the argument towards it.

Scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health in the US revealed the findings of a ten-year study involving more than 10,000 people, which showed that the more coffee people drank, the less likely they were to die prematurely from any illness.

One cup a day reduced the risk of dying early by eight per cent. Two to five cups reduced the risk by 12 per cent, while six cups reduced the risk by 16 per cent.

However, going above six cups saw the effect waning.

What the study didn’t identify was the ingredient in coffee that seems to have this life-enhancing effect.

However, it did reveal that the beneficial effects held true whether it was ground, instant or, crucially, decaffeinated — which researchers said suggests it may not be the caffeine that’s providing the anti-ageing magic.

The benefits are most likely due to polyphenols, chemicals that occur naturally in plants.