A new study has highlighted that coffee can help men ward off the risk of prostate cancer --- so much so that heavy coffee drinkers, those who consume six or more cups a day, apparently face a 60 percent lower risk developing a lethal form of the disease vis-à-vis the nondrinkers!

The findings of the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, conducted by Harvard scientists, revealed that men who drank six or more cups in a day had a nearly 20 percent lesser chance of developing prostate cancer over two decades, as compared to those men who did not drink coffee at all.

In fact, the benefits of coffee were evident even among men who drank only 1-3 cups of coffee a day – they reportedly had an almost 30 percent less likelihood of developing lethal prostate cancer.

Noting that the study is the “largest to date to examine whether coffee could lower the risk of lethal prostate cancer,” senior author and Harvard associate professor Lorelei Mucci said that only a few studies that have been conducted thus far have focused on the link between coffee intake and the risk of lethal prostate cancer - the form of the disease that is “the most critical to prevent.”

Commenting on the findings, Kathryn M. Wilson, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health said: “We’re not yet telling men to drink more coffee, but there’s mounting evidence that if they do, they don’t have to worry about it”!