A recent study found that drinking coffee in the morning specifically reduces the risk of death from heart disease, but those who drink coffee throughout the day, or do not drink it, do not get this benefit.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University in the United States, and its results were published in the European Heart Journal on January 8, and the Eurick Alert website wrote about it.
The researchers found that people who drink coffee in the morning have a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a lower risk of death overall compared to those who drink coffee all day or never.
“Research so far indicates that drinking coffee does not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it appears to reduce the risk of some diseases,” said researcher Dr. Lu Qi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association and a professor at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. “Chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, and given the effects that caffeine has on our bodies, we wanted to see if the time of day you drink coffee has any effect on heart health.”
The study included more than 40,000 adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Survey in the United States between 1999 and 2018. In the context of this study, participants were asked to report information about all the foods and drinks they consumed in at least one day, including whether, how much and when they drank coffee.
The study also included a subgroup of 1,463 people who were asked to write detailed information about the foods and drinks they consumed for an entire week. The researchers were able to link this information to death records and their causes over a decade.
About 36% of people in the study drank coffee in the morning (they primarily drank coffee before midday), 16% of people drank coffee throughout the day (morning, afternoon, and evening) and 48% did not drink coffee.
Don’t limit yourself to one cup in the morning
Compared with people who did not drink coffee, morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die from any cause and 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease. But there was no reduction in risk for all-day coffee drinkers compared to people who didn’t drink coffee.
Morning coffee drinkers benefited from a lower risk whether they were moderate drinkers (2 to 3 cups) or heavy drinkers (more than 3 cups). While light morning coffee drinkers (one cup or less) benefited from a smaller reduction in risk.
“This is the first study to examine coffee drinking timing patterns and health outcomes,” Dr. Chi said. “Our results suggest that it is not just whether or how much you drink coffee, but the time of day you drink coffee that matters. We do not typically provide advice about timing in “Our dietary guidelines, but maybe we should think about this in the future.”
Why drinking coffee in the morning may protect health?
This study doesn’t tell us why drinking coffee in the morning reduces the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. But a possible explanation is that drinking coffee in the afternoon or evening may disrupt the functioning of the biological clock and levels of hormones such as melatonin. This, in turn, leads to changes in cardiovascular risk factors such as inflammation and blood pressure.
“Why does the time of day matter? In the morning hours, there is usually a marked increase in sympathetic nervous system activity (the sympathetic nervous system is known for its role in responding to dangerous situations),” says Professor Thomas Locher of the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, London, UK, according to Eurek Alert. Or stressful) when we wake up and get out of bed, an effect that fades during the day and reaches its lowest levels during sleep. Therefore, it is possible, as the authors point out, to drink coffee in the afternoon or evening It disrupts the circadian rhythm of sympathetic activity. Indeed, many coffee drinkers throughout the day suffer from sleep disorders. In this context, it is interesting that coffee may suppress melatonin, an important sleep-inducing mediator in the brain in general She confirms that drinking coffee, especially in the morning hours, is likely to be healthy, so drink your coffee, but do it in the morning!