By Tracy Miller, New York Daily News

If you’re under 55, you might want to re-think that fourth, fifth or sixth cup of Joe: A new study holds troubling news for younger coffee lovers.

Drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week – about four per day – was linked to a 21 percent higher mortality rate in men and women of all ages, and a 50 percent higher mortality rate in people under 55 years old, according to a study of 40,000 people published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

The findings come from an analysis of data from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study cohort, which followed a group of men and women over an average of 16 years between 1979 and 1998. Study subjects ranged in age from 20 to 87 years old, and were asked to estimate their weekly coffee consumption at the outset.

Over time, the heavy coffee drinkers were more likely to have died from any cause than the moderate or non-coffee drinkers. This was particularly significant among people under 55: Younger men who drank about 28 cups of coffee a week had a 56 percent increased risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers, and younger women had double the risk of dying.

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