Drinking Coffee in the Morning May Be Better for You Than Sipping It All Day, Ac…

We’re only two weeks into the new year, but 2025 has already been a great year for coffee lovers.

On January 3, Food & Wine reported on a new study out of Portugal, showcasing that regularly drinking coffee could add years to your life. And now, another recent study is showing that people who consume coffee may also have a lower risk of dying from all-cause mortality. But, to get those benefits, you need to drink your coffee at a very specific time. 

The study, published in the European Heart Journal and led by Dr. Lu Qi, the Distinguished Chair and Professor at the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University, New Orleans, showed that those who drink coffee — whether decaf or not — in the morning have better health outcomes than those who drink it throughout the day. 

“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,” he shared in a statement about the work. 

To come to this conclusion, the research team looked at the data of 40,725 adults who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2018. As part of the larger data collection, participants were asked about their food and beverage consumption, including if and when they drink coffee. The team then tracked deaths and the cause of death over a period of up to 10 years. They found that 36% of the study participants were morning coffee drinkers, 16% drank their coffee throughout the day, and the rest (48%) didn’t drink coffee at all. 

When they compared those who drank coffee in the morning to those who didn’t drink at all, they found that that cohort was 16% less likely to die of all-cause mortality and 31% less likely to die of cardiovascular disease. The team found that while there was no adverse risk for those who drank it throughout the day, there wasn’t a similar benefit to morning drinkers either. However, the team did find that moderate coffee drinkers (two to three cups) and heavy coffee drinkers (more than three cups) saw the most significant benefits. 

“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,” Qi stated. “We don’t typically give advice about timing in our dietary guidance, but perhaps we should be thinking about this in the future.” 

The researchers also noted that the study can’t and doesn’t explain why drinking coffee in the morning reduces these risks. However, they noted that a possible explanation is that drinking coffee in the afternoon could affect sleep, which could lead to negative outcomes for your cardiovascular system. “Further studies are needed to validate our findings in other populations,” Qi added. “And we need clinical trials to test the potential impact of changing the time of day when people drink coffee.”

But for now, go ahead and savor that cup, knowing it’s likely doing something good for you.