Love your morning coffee? You’re in luck, research shows that your daily brew may be doing more than just waking you up.
While too much coffee in the evening can keep you from sleeping, moderate coffee consumption earlier in the day has been linked to a range of surprising health benefits, from heart protection to weight management.
Here’s what the latest science says.
How much coffee is actually healthy?
There are no official guidelines to suggest how much coffee you should drink, but here’s what we do know:
There’s no one-size-fits-all recommendation, but here’s a rough guide:
- Moderate intake = about 300mg of caffeine, or around 3 cups per day
- Some experts say up to 5 cups a day is still considered safe
- Caffeine tolerance varies; some people feel wired after one cup, others can handle several
- Drinking 50+ cups a day (yes, really) could be fatal, depending on your weight and coffee type, so don’t go there
- Coffee benefits
Besides making your arteries squeaky clean, here are some of the other ways coffee could make you healthier:
🧠It boosts alertness and energy – If you’ve ever downed an espresso to feel more awake after a big night out, you’ll already know that coffee is a powerful alertness booster. It’s so effective, the UK Department of Transport recommends a couple of cups in its Think? road safety campaign. If you suffer from mid-afternoon energy dips, it could be the perfect brew. But take care – if you’re particularly caffeine sensitive, you may not be able to drink a cup of coffee after midday and still get a good night’s sleep. Try to pinpoint your daily coffee deadline, and stick
💓It might help your heart – A study from the University of São Paulo found that drinking three cups of coffee a day may help keep your arteries clear, supporting better heart health and circulation.
🦷It may help prevent tooth decay – Yes, of course, coffee can stain your teeth if you drink too much of it. But a few cups a day could keep your dentist happy in another way. One study suggests coffee made from roasted coffee beans has an antibacterial action against a microorganism called Streptococcus mutans, a major cause of dental cavities, and reduces the amount of S. mutans on the tooth surface.
🩺It protects your liver – According to the NHS, one in three people in the UK has signs of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). And while the early stage of the disease doesn’t usually cause any harm, if it progresses, it can cause much more serious liver damage. But drinking coffee may help protect against NAFLD and help with other types of liver problems too, including cirrhosis, Hepatitis B and C, and chronic liver disease, by making them progress more slowly.
⚖️It may support weight management – Caffeine may help keep your appetite from spiralling out of control and burn more calories, and there’s also evidence that a couple of cups of coffee a day could stop you piling the pounds back on after losing weight. Even decaffeinated coffee has been found to help a little with weight loss, which suggests other things in coffee besides caffeine may be helpful to dieters. The downside is that you may become tolerant to the fat-blasting effects of coffee, meaning it may stop working after a while.
🩸It could lower your risk of Type 2 diabetes – Studies have found that drinking coffee over a long period is linked with a lower risk for type 2 diabetes. And the more cups you drink, the lower your chances of developing the disease.
