Thaindian News

New York, May 21 (IANS) Men who are heavy coffee drinkers are at lower risk for prostate cancer, says a study.

The researchers found that those who consumed six or more cups a day were almost 20 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer over two decades than those who drank none, according to New York Times Friday.

Scientists at Harvard University followed 47,911 men who periodically described their coffee consumption.

More important, the heavy coffee drinkers were 60 percent less likely than the non-drinkers to develop a lethal form of the disease, it said.

Even men who drank just one to three cups of coffee benefited: They were nearly 30 percent less likely to develop lethal prostate cancer, the study said.

It did not matter whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated.

The study, published online Tuesday in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is one of the first to link coffee consumption to a lower risk of prostate cancer.

“We’re not yet telling men to drink more coffee,” the daily quoted the lead author of the study Kathryn M. Wilson, research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, as saying. “But there’s mounting evidence that if they do, they don’t have to worry about it,” she said.

Coffee is a major dietary source of antioxidants, and other studies have suggested that drinking it is associated with health benefits, including a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.