New Delhi, Jan 8 While coffee offers several health benefits, the best time to drink the hot beverage is morning hours, claims a study on Wednesday.
The research, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that people who drink coffee in the morning have a lower risk of dying from heart disease. They also have a lower overall mortality risk compared to people who drink coffee all day long.
Researchers from Tulane University in the US showed morning coffee drinkers were 16 per cent less likely to die of any cause and 31 per cent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease.
However, no reduction in risk was found for people who drink coffee all day, compared to non-coffee drinkers.
“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,” said Dr Lu Qi, Professor at Tulane.
In the study, researchers analysed data on 40,725 adults between 1999 and 2018.
As part of the 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.
The team linked the information with records of deaths and causes of death for nine to 10 years.
More than one in three people in the study were morning coffee drinkers (they primarily drank coffee before midday), and less than one in four drank coffee throughout the day (morning, afternoon, and evening). These were compared with 48 per cent non coffee drinkers.
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, the researchers said.
However, the study doesn’t give the mechanism behind how 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,” Qi said, calling for further studies to validate the findings.
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