(NEXSTAR) – That first cup of coffee feels life-giving in the morning, and a new study suggests that it just may be.
Research published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that drinking moderate amounts of coffee or tea was associated with a lower risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CM).
The condition consists of two or more of the following: diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease.
Lead co-author Chaofu Ke, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at China’s Soochow University, found an association between habitual coffee or caffeine drinkers, and a lower chance of developing CM.
The data was pulled from roughly 500,000 participants of the U.K. Biobank, a massive, long-term study of people between the ages of 37-73. After weeding out respondents who were ambiguous about their caffeine intake, the researchers selected a pool of 188,091 people for analyses of coffee and tea consumption, and another 172,315 for caffeine consumption. None of the participants had CM at the start of the study.
So what caffeine habit saw the lowest risk of CM? Ke says people who consumed two or three cups of coffee (200-300 mg) had a 48.1% reduction in risk compared to those who had less than 100 mg of caffeine per day.
People who said they drank 200-300 mg of caffeine per day – but not only from coffee – had a 40.7% reduction in risk.
“The findings highlight that promoting moderate amounts of coffee or caffeine intake as a dietary habit to healthy people might have far-reaching benefits for the prevention of CM,” Ke said.
Ke added that future studies will be needed to fully understand the relation between coffee, tea, caffeine intake and CM.
I don’t drink caffeine, should I start?
While caffeine drinkers may tip their mug to this study, should everyone else start drinking coffee or tea as well?
The short answer is “No,” Dr. Luke Laffin, co-director at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Blood Pressure Disorders told Nexstar.
Laffin pointed out that the study is observational and can’t rule out other factors, like possible reasons for not drinking coffee.
“Are they concerned it could raise their blood pressure because they already have hypertension, which is a cardiovascular risk factor?” Laffin said in an email to Nexstar. “Are they underweight and frail from a separate illness? That may explain why they do not drink coffee.”
He added that people should drink one, two or maybe even three cups of coffee or tea each day if they enjoy it, but there’s no reason to start if they don’t.
“The only caveat to that is if instead of coffee or tea, people are choosing sugary juices or soda – those individuals should consider making the switch,” Laffin said.
