Researchers have found that women who have two to three cups of coffee daily may lower their risk of developing depression over a ten year period by as much as 20 percent. This study, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, was the largest of its kind, analyzing surveys of over 50,000 U.S. women. These women were enrolled in the well-known, long-term Nurses’Health Study. None of the women had suffered from depression at the beginning of the analysis.
The researches tracked the participants for a decade, and were deemed as being depressed only if they were diagnosed by their physician with clinical depression, and began taking antidepressant medications.
The analysis showed that the women who drank four or more cups of coffee daily had a 20%lower likelihood of developing depression than those who drank one or less cups of coffee weekly. Beneficial results are also gained by consuming other forms of caffeine.