It’s not exactly a hot take to say that filter coffee is better than instant. Instant is certainly miles better than it used to be and is good in a pinch (generally times when filter coffee isn’t feasible). Flavorwise, filter beats instant, but it may also be better for healthy aging.
That’s the finding of a new study, recently published in the journal NPJ Science of Food. In it, researchers from China’s Chongqing Medical University sought to explore how different coffee types, filter versus instant in particular, affected biological aging. They did this by examining data from the UK Biobank, focusing on nearly 50,000 individuals.
To assess aging, researchers focused on “three established metrics:” relative leukocyte telomere length (rLTL), Klemera-Doubal method biological age acceleration (KDM-BA Accel), and PhenoAge acceleration (PhenoAge Accel), which they derived from clinical biomarkers.
When separating participants into groups based on coffee type and consumption amount and account for covariates including “age, race or ethnicity, sex, education, geographic region, Townsend deprivation index, alcohol intake, smoking status, body mass index (BMI), physical activity, sugar, artificial sweetener or milk added to coffee, decaffeinated coffee consumption, and the presence of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, or hypertension,” per News-Medical.net, some trends began to emerge.
When compared to those who didn’t consume coffee, instant coffee drinkers were associated with greater KDM-BA Accel, with the increase appearing to be directly related to intake. The more instant coffee consumed, the greater the KDM-BA Accel. Meanwhile filter coffee has a negative association with KDM-BA Accel and follows the opposite trajectory. The more filter coffee, the less the KDM-BA Accel.
Per the study, “PhenoAge Accel and rLTL showed similar associations,” with filter coffee being associated with a reduced risk of biological aging while instant being linked to an accelerated risk.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t drink instant coffee. There are times when it is instant or nothing, and frankly nothing is not an option I can abide. But drinking filter coffee is the clear choice when time allows. In that it is the one that allows you more time, presumably to drink more coffee.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
