Are you addicted to coffee? Then you may have a reason to celebrate. A long-term international study suggests that enjoying a cup of coffee is good for your health. And several cups are even better.

This is the kind of research that will definitely find its fans. Coffee - the black liquid stuff that was once said to be harmful to your health - may actually prolong your life.

Two long-term studies with a total of 700,000 participants show that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of dying from multiple causes, in particular from circulatory and gastrointestinal diseases.

According to a study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and Imperial College London, the health benefit can be observed across ten European countries with variable coffee drinking habits, from espresso sipping in Italy to cappuccino quaffing in the UK.

The researchers used data from the EPIC study (European Prospective Investigation on Cancer and Nutrition), analysing data from over 500,000 people from ten European countries.

A second study by the University of Southern California (USC) includes participants from four ethnic groups with different lifestyles and disease risks: white-Americans, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans and Latinos.

In all four groups, coffee showed a health benefit. People who consumed a cup of coffee a day had a 12 percent health improvement over non-coffee drinkers. Meanwhile, the USC study suggests people who drink two to three cups a day "reduce the risk of death" from one of the common diseases by 18 percent.

"If you like to drink coffee, drink up. If you are not a coffee drinker, then you need to consider if you should start," says Veronica Setiawan an associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California.