When Should You Drink Coffee for Maximum Health Benefits?

Full disclosure. I am not an impartial observer when it comes to coffee. I love a cup or two of Joe (pun intended) each morning to get my day started. And I have been known to have another mug late morning to keep the juices flowing. I rarely drink coffee later in the day, though. That’s why I love a new study published in the European Heart Journal (Jan. 8, 2025). It reinforces my approach. The authors state that if you drink coffee in the morning you just might live longer than if you drink coffee throughout the day. Hooray!

A Coffee Study You Can Rely Upon!

Let’s start with the researchers. These folks are heavy hitters. One of our favorite guests on The People’s Pharmacy radio show is Dr. JoAnn Manson, MD, MPH, Dr.PH. Here is a short biography.

Dr. Manson is:

“Professor of Medicine and the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). Dr. Manson is a physician epidemiologist, endocrinologist, and Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI of several research studies, including the Women’s Health Initiative Clinical Center In Boston, the cardiovascular component of the Nurses’ Health Study, the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL); the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), and the VItamin D for COVID-19 (VIVID) trial.”

Dr. Manson and her distinguished colleagues analyzed data from 40,725 adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2018). They also included dietary data from 1,463 adults who participated in the Women’s and Men’s Lifestyle Validation data.

When Did People Consume Coffee?

This study was titled:

“Coffee drinking timing and mortality in US adults”

The authors report that there are “two distinct patterns of coffee drinking timing” in Americans:

• 14,643 (36%)  of the volunteers in these studies were “morning type” coffee drinkers like me
• 6,489 (16%) of the volunteers were “all-day” coffee drinkers
• 19,593 (48%) of the volunteers were non-coffee drinkers

The morning coffee drinkers were a lot like me. Their coffee consumption was mainly between 4 a.m. and noon…though I rarely start drinking coffee before 7:00 a.m. The people who drink coffee all day spread their consumption “throughout the whole day in the morning, afternoon, and evening.”

If You Drink Coffee, How Does It Affect Your Health?

The authors introduce their research this way:

“Most prospective studies have found that moderate coffee consumption is associated with lower risks of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), and death. The 2015–20 US Dietary Guidelines recommend moderate coffee consumption as part of a healthy dietary pattern.”

We have documented the health benefits of coffee consumption:

“What Are the Health Benefits of Coffee and Chocolate?”

and

“Is Drinking Coffee Good or Bad for You?

The New Results on Timing of Coffee Consumption:

Here is what the new study revealed:

“Compared with non-coffee drinking, we found that a morning-type coffee drinking pattern was significantly associated with lower risks of all-cause mortality and CVD [cardiovascular disease]-specific mortality, independent of the amount of coffee intake. In contrast, an all-day-type pattern was not significantly associated with mortality compared with non-drinking. Moreover, we found that patterns of coffee drinking timing significantly modified the association between coffee intake amounts and all-cause mortality risk, with morning coffee appeared to be more strongly associated with a lower risk of mortality than coffee drinking throughout the day.”

Bottom line: morning coffee drinkers lived longer!

The researchers speculate that circadian rhythms and melatonin levels might be adversely affected by later consumption of java.

Why Is Coffee Beneficial?

The authors offer this explanation:

“…a large portion of coffee’s health benefits are achieved through the anti-inflammatory effects of the bioactive substances it contains.”

People tend to have more inflammatory markers in their bloodstreams during morning hours than later in the day. That led the investigators to state:

“Therefore, when the amounts of coffee intake are similar, the anti-inflammatory effect of a pattern of coffee consumption concentrated in the morning may be more beneficial than that of a pattern of coffee consumption spread across morning, afternoon, and evening. This explanation applies to both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee consumption.”

Who Funded This Study?

Whenever we report on this kind of research, some people, especially those who dislike coffee, try to find fault. They almost always ask about the funding, assuming that if coffee makers contributed money, then the results cannot be trusted.

Rest easy! Funding came from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. So, you paid for this research. The NIH also supported the original studies: The Women’s Lifestyle Validation Study and Men’s Lifestyle Validation Study.

If you really dislike coffee, there is no reason for you to start drinking it. On the other hand, if you do like a cup or two of morning Joe, then you can enjoy this little pleasure without remorse.

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