Your morning cup of Joe may do a lot more than just give you the alertness to face your day. A new study suggests that drinking a cup of coffee in the morning may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease as well as extend your life overall!
The study included 40,725 adults taking part in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2018. As part of this study, participants were asked about all the food and drink they consumed on at least one day, including whether they drank coffee, how much, and when. It also included a sub-group of 1,463 people who were asked to complete a detailed food and drink diary for a full week.
Researchers were able to link this information with records of deaths and causes of death over a period of nine to ten years.
Compared with people who did not drink coffee, morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die of any cause and 31% less likely to die of cardiovascular disease.
Morning coffee drinkers benefitted from the lower risks, whether they were moderate drinkers (two to three cups) or heavy drinkers (more than three cups). Light morning drinkers (one cup or less) benefitted from a smaller decrease in risk. However, there was no reduction in risk for all-day coffee drinkers compared to non-coffee
Dr Lu Qi, a professor and HCA Regents Distinguished Chair at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and lead researcher on the project, said: “This is the first study testing coffee drinking timing patterns and health outcomes. Our findings indicate that it’s not just whether you drink coffee or how much you drink but the time of day when you drink coffee that’s important. We don’t typically give advice about timing in our dietary guidance, but perhaps we should be thinking about this in the future.”
In an accompanying editorial[2], Professor Thomas F. Lüscher from Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, London, UK, said, “Overall, we must accept the now substantial evidence that coffee drinking, particularly in the morning hours, is likely to be healthy. Thus, drink your coffee, but do so in the morning!”
You can read the full study as published in the European Heart Journal by clicking on this link.
