Photo via Flickr user stephenrwalli
Read: What the Fuck Is Up with Coffee?Keeping track of the latest Food Boogeyman can be exhausting. Damn near everything you've ever loved to put in your mouth has been determined by one study or another to be bad for you. At different points in time red meat, dairy, popcorn, salt, and sugar have all been heralded as one-trip tickets into the ground.But these things work on a cycle. Wait a few years after a story drops about how milk is murdering you, and a new study will inevitably emerge showing that perhaps the opposite is true. Just look at butter's triumphant comeback and how, as it turns out, sugar can actually reduce stress.In terms of its effect on human health, coffee has certainly taken it on the chin in the past. But it's also received praise for making your dink work good. Like a lot of the stuff we put in our bodies, no one can agree on what exactly the fuck is up with it. Following that trend, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health as well as researchers from Madrid and Indiana University shows that coffee can—are you ready for this?—reduce the risk of dying. Too bad the stuff couldn't save Coffee Dad's son from an early grave.The New YorkTimes reports that researchers working on the study followed more than 200,000 doctors and nurses for up to 30 years, all the while having them fill out questionnaires about their lifestyle, coffee intake included. The study ultimately found that nonsmokers who drank a cup of coffee a day reduced their risk of death by six percent. Those who drank three to five cups daily saw a 15 percent reduced risk.Of course, a good bit of the extra time on Earth you enjoy as a result of your coffee intake will most likely be spent on the toilet, but every minute on this mortal coil is precious.Besides, the lead author of the report, Harvard School of Public Health's Dr. Ming Ding, reminds readers that the "study is observational, so it's hard to know if the positive effect is causal or not."