Coffee drinkers reap health boost – but only if they do it in the morning
People who get their coffee hit in the morning reap benefits that are not seen in those who have shots later in the day, according to the first major study into the health benefits of the drink at different times.
Analysis of the coffee consumption of more than 40,000 adults found that morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die of any cause and 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease during a 10-year follow-up period than those who went without.
But the benefits to heart health appeared to vanish in people who drank coffee throughout the day, the researchers found, with medical records showing no significant reduction in mortality for all-day drinkers compared with those who avoided coffee.
“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,” said Prof Lu Qi, an expert in nutrition and epidemiology at Tulane University in New Orleans. “We don’t typically give advice about timing in our dietary guidance, but perhaps we should be thinking about this in the future.”
The study drew on the dietary habits of 40,725 adults – including the amount of coffee they consumed and when they had it – who participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2018. About 36% were morning coffee drinkers, while 16% drank coffee later into the day.
