Drinking a few cups of coffee a day is actually good for you, but new research suggests that when you sip makes all the difference when it comes to heart health and longevity. The 2025 study, published in the European Heart Journal, was the first of its kind to look into the relationship between the timing of coffee consumption and heart health.
The CDC recommends consuming no more than 400mg of caffeine (roughly three to five cups of coffee) daily, as part of a healthy diet. Yet the new study found that, when it comes to looking after your heart, the biggest benefits come from consuming coffee in the morning. Morning coffee drinkers also had a lower overall mortality risk than the other groups in the study.
During the study, researchers analyzed data from 40,725 adults participating in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2008. As part of the study, participants had to answer questions about the food and drinks they consumed each day, how much they consumed and when. This data was compared to a separate study of 1,463 adults, and researchers then compared the data to death records over a 10-year period
The study found that 36% of participants drank coffee before noon, 16% drank coffee throughout the day, and 48% didn’t drink coffee at all. Compared with the non-coffee drinkers, morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die of any cause, and 31% less likely to die of cardiovascular disease. There was no reduction in risk for the all-day coffee drinkers compared to the non-coffee drinkers.
Obviously, there are limitations to the study, but it seems to suggest that morning coffee drinkers benefit from health benefits that people who sip coffee throughout the day don’t get. In a news release, senior study author Lu Qi, MD, PhD, HCA Regents Distinguished Chair and professor at the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University, 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.”
Qi further noted that, because this is an observational study, further research is needed to validate the findings. It is thought that, potentially, drinking coffee in the morning has less of an impact on the body’s internal circadian rhythm.
People who sip coffee throughout the day might be disrupting hormones like melatonin, affecting the body’s circadian rhythm and disrupting sleep. Disturbances in sleep can have an adverse effect on heart health, as it might result in your blood pressure staying higher for a longer period of time, increasing your risk of heart disease and stroke.
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