Professional cycling: It’s the sort of job obviously where you’re always using your legs. But if you’re like cycling pro Lawson Craddock, it’s the sort of job where you sometimes pull other people’s.

Just before the start of an early stage of the 20-day Vuelta a España in 2015, a journalist from the Global Cycling Network shoved a mic in his face and asked him how many cups of coffee he had already consumed that day. “Maybe a cup, one or two cups,” the American riding for Team Giant-Alpecin answered.

And then the leg pulling began.

He explained in a rather matter-of-fact tone - and somehow with a straight face - that coffee consumption would increase for him and the entire peloton as the race progressed. That by the later and tougher stages, they all “might be pulling in a solid gallon” a day.

What Craddock didn’t pull, however, were any punches when he added, “That’s just how cyclists work. [We’re] addicted to coffee.”

I’m not pulling any punches either when I say that’s how I work, too. Or that jonesing for java’s not quite like jonesing for illegal drugs.

Too much joe leads to jitters, not jail time. An overdose causes insomnia, not the forever-and-a-day sleep you do in the confines of a coffin.

Habitual coffee consumption is more akin to habitual exercising: a mostly positive addiction. But that mostly positive addiction comes with a caveat.

Some people don’t tolerate coffee very well. If some people started their day the way I do, with 6 cups of a dark-roasted, half-caff blend on an empty stomach, they’d get more than a productive writing session followed by a fruitful workout.

They’d get restless, anxious, an increased heart rate well before and during an erratic workout.

But most people handle the amount I consume daily (the caffeine equivalent to 3, 8-ounce cups of coffee really) really well, well enough so that you’ll find articles like “9 Reasons Why (the Right Amount of) Coffee Is Good For You,” provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine all over the internet.

Articles like this exist, in part, because of what you read here 10 weeks ago. That coffee is no longer seen as a cause for high blood pressure, a disease that when left unchecked raises your risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney damage, sexual dysfunction, vision problems, and what the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center calls a hypertensive crisis, the symptoms of which include nosebleeds, lightheadedness, dizziness, shortness of breath, and pain in the chest.

The 10-week-ago article focused on a review published in the January 2023 issue of Nutrients that found those consuming more than 2 cups of coffee per day had a 5-point lower blood pressure reading on average - and that those who drank even more on a daily basis lowered their BP another 4 points. This led Dr. Jim Liu, a cardiologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, to tell Healthline, “If anything, moderate coffee consumption [4 to 5 cups according to Healthline] may help with blood pressure.”

So what’s the focus of today’s article?

That coffee’s good-for-you rep has come to be not only because it can lower high blood pressure. Other studies have linked it to additional health benefits that ultimately lead to a longer lifespan.

One published in 2015 by Circulation and done with 200,000 participants over 30 years revealed that those who consumed 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day were 15 percent less likely to die from any cause, not just the heart disease whose harbinger is so often high blood pressure. A 2018 study published in JAMA followed more than 500,000 people for about 10 years revealed that those heavily reliant on joe - those who consume 6 to 7 cups a day - were 16 percent less likely to die when compared to those who don’t drink coffee at all.

Impressive stats - especially when they also show the addicting substance in coffee, caffeine, only plays a secondary role in creating the health benefits.

Which means if being addicted to anything other than exercising (or reading this column) is an anathema to you, drinking decaffeinated coffee is the thing to do. Both aforementioned studies included both types of coffee drinkers, meaning it’s the thousands of phytochemicals found in coffee more so than the caffeine that really do a body good.

For instance, a type known as the polyphenols has been linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, obesity, all sorts of bodily inflammation, and yes, a reduced incidence of heart disease.

So drink in and drink up and experience what the nutrition experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine say coffee can do for you: help your liver function better; better maintain your DNA; reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease; as well as increase your odds of living longer.