Did you celebrate National Coffee Day yesterday (September 29th) and get your free cup of coffee from the many outlets participating in the celebration? If not, International Coffee Day is tomorrow (October 1st) and you can raise a cup of Joe in celebration. For a bit of perspective, consider this: Close to 150 billion cups of coffee are consumed annually just in the United States, and worldwide, approximately 2 billion cups are consumed daily. So, if you are a coffee consumer (and frankly, who isn’t?), you’re certainly not alone. And fortunately, for the most part, the science investigating the health benefits of coffee continues to grow. For some previous agebuzz posts on the value of coffee drinking, grind some beans and click here.

Most recently, a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress reported more data in support of coffee consumption. Researchers in Hungary conducted what they believe is the largest study assessing the cardiovascular effects of daily coffee consumption in people without a history of heart disease. What they found was that light-to-moderate coffee consumption (somewhere in the range of 3 cups a day), in comparison to non-coffee drinkers, was associated with lowering the risk of stroke, death from cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. Researchers stated that “Daily coffee consumption was proved to be safe, as even more than 3 cups per day was not associated with adverse outcomes after a median follow-up of 11 years.” Moreover, they found that daily coffee consumers had healthier sized and better functioning hearts, consistent with reversing the detrimental effects of aging on the heart. Who knew that coffee seems to have anti-aging properties? There is also evidence that coffee has brain-boosting powers, including a recent study of bees that suggests caffeine seems to boost memory skills in the short term and that 1-2 cups of coffee per day seems to have a positive effect on sustaining cognition longer. 

The problem, then, with your coffee consumption may not be to your health but rather to your wallet. Recently, with the effects of climate change apparent worldwide (especially with drought and frost in Brazil), it appears that coffee prices may soon rise, and even continue to spiral upward. Along with other foods that may begin to inhabit the luxury goods category, coffee may soon become both more expensive and more scarce, as climate change continues to devastate coffee-growing regions worldwide.

So before your pot runs dry, you may want to take advice from experts and search out the most sustainable (and delicious) coffee brands or sign up for a coffee subscription service that will hopefully be able to keep you in coffee for the foreseeable future.