Courtney Tomlinson said she thought she’d live forever as she sat outside a downtown Gainesville Starbucks sipping on her venti Caffè Mocha.
Earlier that day, she’d seen an article about a study that linked drinking coffee to living longer.
“I’ve been drinking coffee since high school, which is probably like 10 years,” said Tomlinson, a 30-year-old elementary education junior at Santa Fe College. “I guess I’m going to live forever.”
The study, published online last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, examined about 400,000 people 50 to 71 years old.
Its head researcher, Neal Freedman, said it is the largest study of coffee on long-term health.
Due to the many components in coffee, Freedman said, the study shouldn’t be taken at face value.
Tina Adkins is the general manager at Sweetwater Organic Coffee Roasters, which provides organic coffee roasted locally to places like Pascal’s Coffee, Satchel’s Pizza and UF’s Gator Dining Services.
She said she sees the benefits of coffee herself.
“Do I drink coffee? Yes,” she said. “Probably from the time I get up until the time I actually leave work. I mean, we drink a lot of coffee — a lot of coffee.”
Emily Schwartz, 25, serves coffee at Karma Cream on West University Avenue. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine linked drinking coffee to living longer.
