Morning Magic: That First Cup of Joe Packs Surprising Health Benefits, New Report Finds

Your morning coffee isn’t just an upper. Recent research says it helps protect your heart from cardiovascular disease, decreases the odds of contracting kidney disease, and increases overall life expectancy. One extensive study says the benefits apply to cups of morning Joe only, not to all-day coffee drinkers, and not to people who avoid the morning coffee rush entirely.

Health benefits attached to coffee are not exactly a new idea, although some of the earliest claims appear to have been made by people who might have been a little hyper-caffeinated. In the 1600s, the Brits credited coffee with curing alcoholism, gout and scurvy, headaches and stomachaches, miscarriages, smallpox, and (shades of RFK Jr.!) measles, according to sprudge.com. Centuries ago, Islamic physicians claimed that coffee “fortifies the members, cleans the skin, and dries up the humidities that are under it, and gives an excellent smell to all the body.’”

The newest info comes from a Tulane University study just published in the European Heart Journal, which found that people who drink coffee in the morning have a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a lower overall mortality risk when compared with both the non-coffee drinker and the all-day coffee drinker. Study leader Lu Qi says that compared with people who did not drink coffee, morning coffee drinkers were 16 percent less likely to die of any cause and 31 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease. The study data were derived from observing 40,725 adults taking part in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2018.

In an accompanying editorial, one London counterpart, cardiologist Thomas F. Lüscher, suggests the time of day may matter because when we wake up in the morning, our sympathetic nervous system also wakes up, empowering our cardiovascular activity. Late in the day, though, coffee may disrupt this. “Overall,” he concludes, “we must accept the now substantial evidence that coffee drinking, particularly in the morning hours, is likely to be healthy. Thus, drink your coffee, but do so in the morning!”

Morning, noon, or night, Johns Hopkins nephrologists also endorse coffee based on a recent study showing that at least one cup of coffee a day may reduce the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI). The data, in the journal Kidney International Reports, show that those who drank any quantity of coffee every day had a 15 percent lower risk of AKI, with the largest reductions observed in the group that drank two to three cups a day (a 22 to 23 percent lower risk). “We can now add a possible reduction in AKI risk to the growing list of health benefits for caffeine,” said Chirag Parikh, director of the Division of Nephrology and professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

So how much coffee is the optimal amount to drink to get all the benefits, but avoid the negative side effects? In the Tulane study, morning coffee drinkers benefited from the lower risks whether they were moderate drinkers (two to three cups a day) or heavy drinkers (more than three cups). Light morning drinkers (one cup or less) benefited from a smaller decrease in risk.

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it’s safe for most women who are neither pregnant nor breast-feeding to drink three to five cups of coffee a day with a maximum intake of 400 milligrams of caffeine. (Caffeine content can vary depending on the type of coffee, but an average 8-ounce cup has 95 milligrams.)

Caffeine is likely the first thing that comes to mind when you think about coffee, but Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine behavioral pharmacist and addiction researcher Dustin Lee explains that coffee also contains antioxidants and other active substances that may reduce internal inflammation and protect against disease. Especially if you drink it in the morning.