In this Market Foolery segment, host Chris Hill and Motley Fool Funds' Bill Barker briefly put down their own cups o' joe to pontificate on the latest confirmation that coffee drinkers live longer. Feels like there ought to be a marketing angle for some national chains, doesn't it?
A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on July 12, 2017.
Chris Hill: The greatest possible news has come forth in the form of not one but two coffee studies, and their effects on long-term health. It is, dare I say, nothing but great news, including this little nugget. The first study, which was the largest of its kind, looked at the correlation between coffee drinking and mortality, among nearly half a million participants in 10 European countries. This is a 16-year study. This is not some fly by-night study we're talking about here; this is incredibly comprehensive. Researchers found that men who drank three or more cups of coffee per day lowered their risk of death by 18% compared to those who didn't. So, three or more cups of coffee per day -- you and I totally qualify for that.
Bill Barker: By 9 o'clock, often.
Hill: Lowered their risk of death by 18%. The second study -- this to me is the icing on the cake. This was done in the United States. It found that over the same time frame, drinking one cup of coffee per day lowered the risk of death by 12%. Two or three cups lowered the risk by 18%. So, again, something that we have long suspected, hoped for, is now proven by science, which is, the more coffee you drink, the closer you get to immortality.
Barker: The greatest risk that you can take with your health is to not drink at least seven or eight cups of coffee a day.
Hill: I think that's right.
Barker: You look at those numbers and extend that out. They're only studying, how much?
Hill: I think they're going up to three.
Barker: Right. It stands to reason that eight or 10 or more cups of coffee a day will extend your life that much further.
Hill: If one cup goes 12%, and two to three lower your risk by 18%, you and I --
Barker: It's diminishing returns, but they still keep improving, is my argument. Get to that 50th cup, it's not helping that much, but a little bit.
Hill: OK, serious question.
Barker: First time for everything.
Hill: At what point do you think coffee companies -- Starbucks (SBUX 0.29%), Dunkin' Brands, any publicly traded coffee entity -- at what point do you think they start pushing studies like this in their advertising?
Barker: I don't know, it's a bit like Qantas, isn't it? You don't know where I'm going with that, do you?
Hill: The Australian airline that has had no crashes, is that it?
Barker: That's right.
Hill: I only know that from the movie Rain Man.
Barker: Exactly. Why don't they promote that?
Hill: Because people think, "That streak is going to end at some point, and it'll probably be when I'm on the plane."
Barker: Exactly. So the reason they don't do that, I think, is because if you're going to hang your hat on that, and some study comes out and you don't like the results, people start pointing fingers at you. I think it's good enough that there are no bad studies that I'm aware of, except if you have high blood pressure or hypertension, and that it's addictive. And they don't need to overdo it. If they start selling Starbucks as a health product, I think people are going to start pointing at the sugar stuff. Because it's not pristine, in Starbucks' case. There's too much sugar.
Hill: No. And that comes up in the article, like, "Look, any time you're adding in sugar, cream, syrups, that sort of thing --"
Barker: Gummy bears.
Hill: Gummy bears, whatever that unicorn Frappuccino thing, whatever that monstrosity was --
Barker: Reese's Pieces.
Hill: Yeah, that's obviously going to affect your health in other ways. But I don't know, I see what you're saying, and I agree with you that I don't think this is a mass-market consumer message that Starbucks would ever put out there. But somewhere, maybe when they're selling to businesses --
Barker: Just have your bot get that out there on their Twitter, just some account that you're vaguely associated with, the coffee industry, you support them and they push it out. I don't think, if you're Starbucks, you put your own hat on that.
Hill: OK, you have, the Coffee Growers of whatever Association -- you put it out through them?
Barker: Yeah.
Hill: I think that's probably a good move.
