"I don't think I need that much coffee in my daily life," says Alison J. Huang '96

Kawachi says the results of the experiment are not definite enough to encourage drastic coffee consumption.

"It's too early to recommend caffeine as an anti-depressant," he says.

"One thing that's commonly said is that we don't know whether this may be due to some unknown factor," he says.

Students generally expressed concern that coffee is related to heart disease and say it is not worth drinking coffee in hopes of lowering the risk of suicide.

"I think it's one study and the side effects and disadvantages of having so much caffeine outweigh the [advantages]," says Lucy Yen '99.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found last month that coffee has no effect on heart disease. But they warned that coffee drinkers face increased risks for osteoporosis and fractures.

Kawachi says heavy coffee drinkers also tend to drink alcohol to excess and be more stressed. But he argues that these people would be more prone to suicide, not less, as the study indicates.

Kawachi attributes the results to the energizing ability of caffeine.

"Caffeine is a very well-known stimulant, one of the most widely consumed stimulants in the world," he says.

Kawachi says the caffeine in coffee has been shown to energize, relax and elevate the mood of the consumer.

The study was performed as a result of a similar study which had been conducted in California which attempted to determine whether drinking coffee would increase the risk of mortality.

The group showed that there were much lower risks of suicides among the coffee drinkers.

Kawachi says his group of researchers decided to replicate the experiment for a more specific focus on the effects of coffee on suicide.