How many cups of coffee do you drink a day? With prostate cancer being the most common cancer diagnosed, you might want to think about increasing your coffee intake.

According to the American Cancer Society, a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that drinking coffee can lower the risk of prostate cancer. The reasons why coffee could have these effects are unknown, but it is an interesting finding if it’s true. Kathryn Wilson and her associates analyzed the statistics from the Health Professional Follow-Up Study involving just under 50,000 U.S. men. This group reported how much coffee they drank on a 4-year interval from 1986 to 2008. During this time there were over 5,000 cases of prostate cancer in the group and 642 that became metastatic.

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Men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day had a 20% reduction in their prostate cancer risk and a 60% of having metastatic prostate cancer.

You may be thinking, “6 cups a day?!” However, even drinking 1 to 3 cups a day reduced metastatic risk by 30%. Plus, it didn’t matter whether the coffee was caffeinated or not! It is unknown why this is true or what compound causes the improvement, but it is at least an interesting result.

Don’t go out and start drinking coffee to improve your chances of not getting prostate cancer just yet though. This is only one study, based on a generic data collection and other studies would need to be conducted in order to tell if it is or isn’t really true. But, it certainly adds to my enjoyment of coffee.