Good news for coffee lovers: drinking up to three cups of coffee a day may help protect your heart and reduce the risk of stroke. That’s what a new study from Semmelweis University has found.
Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world, but its effects on heart health have been debated for years. To get a clearer picture, researchers wanted to see how regular coffee drinking affects the chances of having a heart attack, stroke, or dying early.
The study looked at data from the UK Biobank, a large research project that includes health information from hundreds of thousands of people.
For this study, researchers focused on 468,629 adults who didn’t have any signs of heart disease when the study began. Their average age was just over 56, and slightly more than half were women. These people were followed for 10 to 15 years.
Participants were divided into three groups based on how much coffee they usually drank. About 22% didn’t drink coffee often, 58% drank between half a cup to three cups a day (light-to-moderate drinkers), and 19% drank more than three cups daily.
The results were surprising. People who drank coffee in light-to-moderate amounts had a 12% lower risk of dying from any cause, a 17% lower risk of dying from heart disease, and a 21% lower risk of having a stroke compared to those who rarely drank coffee.
These findings suggest that moderate coffee drinking might actually help protect the heart and blood vessels.
To understand why this might be the case, the researchers also looked at heart scans from over 30,000 people using a detailed imaging method called cardiac MRI. They found that regular coffee drinkers had healthier heart size and function. This suggests that coffee may help the heart age more slowly.
Although the exact reasons behind these benefits are not fully known, it’s possible that certain compounds in coffee help improve how the heart works.
The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Judit Simon, says that while the findings are exciting, more research is needed to fully understand how coffee helps the heart. The study was presented at the ESC Congress 2021, a major event focused on heart health.
So, if you enjoy drinking coffee, there may be even more reason to keep it in your routine—just in moderation. Up to three cups a day could offer real health benefits, especially for your heart.
Of course, everyone is different. It’s always best to talk to your doctor about what’s right for you, especially if you have other health issues.
This study adds to growing evidence that small, everyday habits—like drinking coffee—can have a big impact on our long-term health.
If you care about coffee, please read studies that drinking coffee this way can help prevent stroke, heart disease, and drink coffee after breakfast, not before, for better blood sugar control.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about natural supplement that could relieve anxiety, and results showing this common food oil in the U.S. can change genes in the brain.
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