A new study suggests that drinking coffee in the morning may be more beneficial for health than consuming several cups throughout the day. Researchers aimed to determine if the timing of coffee consumption affects health by studying over 40,000 US adults participating in long-term health, nutrition, and lifestyle studies.
They identified two coffee-drinking patterns: those who drink coffee only before midday and those who consume it all day. The study found that 36% of participants were morning coffee drinkers, while about 14% drank coffee throughout the day.
Led by specialists from Tulane University, the team followed the subjects for nearly ten years, during which 4,295 participants died. After adjusting for various factors, results indicated that morning coffee drinkers had a 16% lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers and a 31% reduced risk of dying from heart disease.
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In contrast, no risk reduction was observed for all-day coffee drinkers. The researchers concluded that higher coffee intake was “significantly” linked to a decreased risk of death, but this association was only significant among morning coffee drinkers versus those who consumed coffee all day.
“Drinking coffee in the morning may be more strongly associated with a lower risk of mortality than drinking coffee later in the day,” they wrote in the European Heart Journal. The lead author, Dr Lu Qi from Tulane University in Louisiana, stated: “Research so far suggests that drinking coffee doesn’t raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it seems to lower the risk of some chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.
“Given the effects that caffeine has on our bodies, we wanted to see if the time of day when you drink coffee has any impact on heart health.”
He added: “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.
“This study doesn’t tell us why drinking coffee in the morning reduces the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
“A possible explanation is that consuming coffee in the afternoon or evening may disrupt circadian rhythms and levels of hormones such as melatonin. This, in turn, leads to changes in cardiovascular risk factors such as inflammation and blood pressure.
“Further studies are needed to validate our findings in other populations, and we need clinical trials to test the potential impact of changing the time of day when people drink coffee.”
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In a linked editorial, Professor Thomas Luuscher, from the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals in London, said “many all-day drinkers suffer from sleep disturbances”.
He wrote: “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.”
Similar findings were observed among those who drank caffeinated coffee or decaffeinated coffee either in the morning or throughout the day.
The researchers said that among coffee drinkers, participants with morning-type pattern were more likely to consume tea and caffeinated soda but consume less coffee – both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee – compared with those who drank coffee all day.