If you're a coffee drinker then you might be interested to know that if you drink it before a particular time of the day - but not afterwards - it could help your health.
Lots of people seemingly rely on the caffeinated drink to get them up, awake and alert, or to keep their eyes open late into the night, but there are some who seem to require increasingly large amounts of the beverage for it to have the same impact.
Nevertheless, according to a new study from researchers at Tulane University, Louisiana, of over 40,000 people, it would seem like there's a right time to drink coffee.
The study found that people who drink coffee in the morning, but not all through the day have a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a lower overall mortality risk compared to people who quaffed coffee all throughout the day.
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Dr Lu Qi of Tulane University was the lead author of the study and he said: "Research so far suggests that drinking coffee doesn’t raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it seems to lower the risk of some chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.
"Given the effects that caffeine has on our bodies, we wanted to see if the time of day when you drink coffee has any impact on heart health.”
The study tracked participants' health and diet over long periods of time. They were asked about the food and drink they would consume in a day and some were asked to keep a detailed diary of their diet.
Researchers found that around 36 percent of people were morning coffee drinkers compared to 16 percent who drank it all throughout the day and 48 percent of folks who didn't find it to be their preferred hot beverage of choice.
Out of these three groups the morning coffee drinkers were found to have better cardiovascular health compared to the rest.
According to the findings of the research, morning coffee drinkers were 31 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 16 percent less likely to die of any cause.
Meanwhile, those who drank coffee all day did not have a noticeably reduced level of risk compared to non-coffee drinkers, so if you're a coffee fan it might be an idea to have it only in the morning and stop after midday.
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Dr Qi said: "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.
"We don’t typically give advice about timing in our dietary guidance, but perhaps we should be thinking about this in the future.
“This study doesn’t tell us why 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.
“Further studies are needed to validate our findings in other populations, and we need clinical trials to test the potential impact of changing the time of day when people drink coffee.”
Professor Thomas F. Lüscher from Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals added that many all-day coffee drinkers suffer from sleep problems, which is known to cause health problems.
Topics: Health, Food And Drink, Science
Joe Harker