According to the latest issue of BMJ Mental Health magazine, a new study led by an international team from King's College London suggests that drinking no more than 3 to 4 cups of coffee per day may help slow down the cellular aging process in patients with severe mental illness. Telomeres naturally shorten with age, and this shortening process is often more pronounced in patients with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. To investigate whether coffee intake affects telomere length, the research team analyzed data from 436 adult participants in the Norwegian "Theme Organized Psychiatry Study". The results showed that participants who drank 3 to 4 cups of coffee per day had significantly longer telomere lengths than those who did not drink coffee, but those who drank 5 or more cups per day did not show a similar trend. This difference still exists after adjusting for factors such as smoking, age, gender, and medication treatment. It is worth noting that the "3 to 4 cups" referred to by the research institute uses commonly used epidemiological conversion, which means that each cup contains about 80-100 milligrams of caffeine. Modern commercial coffee shops have larger beverage capacities and higher caffeine content. Therefore, for people who drink instant or homemade small cups, "3-4 cups per day" is more suitable. But if you drink a large commercial American drink, 1-2 cups may be close to the optimal intake in the study. The research team emphasizes that this study is an observational study and cannot prove that coffee itself causes telomere elongation. Additionally, potential confounding factors such as coffee type, drinking time, and other caffeinated beverages were not recorded. (New Society)