Drinking one to three cups per day even was linked to a 30 percent lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer.
Harvard associate professor and senior author, Lorelei Mucci said, "Our study is the largest to date to examine whether coffee could lower the risk of lethal prostate cancer."
Researchers believe the lower risk could be linked to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of coffee, the effects were the same whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated.
The study examined 47,911 men who reported on how much coffee they drank every four years from 1986 to 2008.
A total of 5,035 cases of prostate cancer were reported over the course of the study, including 642 fatal, or metastatic, cases.
Even after researchers allowed for other factors which typically boost risk, such as, smoking and failure to exercise, the lower risk seen in coffee drinkers remained.
There are 16 million survivors of prostate cancer worldwide, and one in six men in the United States will get prostate cancer during his lifetime.
Prostate cancer can be detected early with a blood test, a Gleason score is used to grade the cancer, the higher the score, the more likely the cancer is to spread.
Risk factors are typically linked to Western style high-fat diets, heredity, alcohol consumption, and exposure to chemicals.
Copyright AFP
