We’ve recently written at HuffPost UK about how coffee is associated with a longer life, but only if you drink it in the morning.
Even among morning drinkers, single-cup sippers fared better than those who swigged two mugfuls or more.
Coffee has been linked with heart and gut benefits, and may even play a role in reducing mouth cancer risk.
But surely you can have too much of a good thing, right?
Well, a paper published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism says that when it comes to heart health, the answer is a firm “yes.”
Here’s how much coffee is too much
The researchers looked at data from 172,315 members of the UK Biobank, all of whom were free from cardiometabolic (CM) diseases ― like type two diabetes, stroke, and heart attack ― at the start of the study.
The participants self-reported their caffeine intake.
Though all caffeine intake was linked to a lower risk of CM conditions, the scientists found that people who had a “moderate” coffee intake saw a 48.1% decreased likelihood of developing the health problems over time.
They defined “moderate” as three coffees a day, or 200-300 mg per day of caffeine (which was associated with a 40.7% lower risk of new-onset CM conditions).
The study’s lead author Dr Chaofu Ke told Science Daily: “Consuming three cups of coffee, or 200-300 mg caffeine, per day might help to reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in individuals without any cardiometabolic disease.”
The researcher added, “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.”
Does that mean drinking more or less than that will make me sick?
No. This was an observational study, meaning scientists didn’t change anyone’s lifestyles. You can’t say that drinking a certain amount of coffee definitely causes benefits based on that information; you can only prove a link.
The caffeine drinking data was also self-reported, which can be unreliable.
Still, a 2022 heart health study also found that three was the magic number, and the British Heart Foundation says most people will be fine with four or five cups.
The Mayo Clinic puts it at 400mg a day; all seem to agree that a “moderate” amount is the best choice.
Too much caffeine (more than 600mg) is associated with diarrhoea, anxiety, sleeplessness, agitation, and even palpitations, NHS Fife says.