Drinking coffee in the morning may be more strongly associated with a lower risk of mortality than drinking coffee later in the day, according to a new study led by Tulane University scientists.
Wang et al. highlight the importance of considering drinking timing in the association between the amounts of coffee intake and health outcomes. Image credit: Sci.News.
“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,” said Tulane University’s Professor Lu Qi, lead author on the study.
“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.”
The study included 40,725 adults taking part in the U.S. 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.
Around 36% of people in the study were morning coffee drinkers (they primarily drank coffee before midday), 16% of people drank coffee throughout the day (morning, afternoon and evening) and 48% were not coffee drinkers.
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.
However, there was no reduction in risk for all-day coffee drinkers compared to non-coffee drinkers.
Morning coffee drinkers benefited 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) benefited from a smaller decrease in risk.
“This is the first study testing coffee drinking timing patterns and health outcomes,” Professor Qi said.
“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.”
“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.”
The study was published today in the European Heart Journal.
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Xuan Wang et al. Coffee drinking timing and mortality in US adults. European Heart Journal, published online January 8, 2024; doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehae871
