Drinking Coffee at the Wrong Time Cancels Its Benefits

Could the time you drink your coffee influence how long you live? That question inspired a group of researchers to explore the connection between coffee habits and the likelihood of living longer among people. While coffee has long been known for helping people stay alert and offering some health benefits, past studies mostly focused on how much coffee people drink. This new study looked at when people drink coffee and how that might affect their overall health and lifespan.

Dr. Lu Qi and his team from Tulane University and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, conducted this large-scale research. Their results were shared in the respected medical journal European Heart Journal, a publication that features findings in heart health and related fields.

Dr. Qi’s team found two main patterns of coffee drinking in the population. One group, called the “morning-type,” mostly drank coffee early in the day. The other group, the “all-day-type,” drank coffee throughout the entire day. The findings showed that those who drank their coffee mostly in the morning had a noticeably lower chance of dying from any cause, especially from heart-related diseases, compared to people who didn’t drink coffee. Those who drank coffee all day didn’t seem to get the same benefit.

During the nearly ten years of tracking participants, several thousand deaths were recorded, many of them due to heart problems. After taking into account other factors such as how much coffee was consumed, whether it was regular or decaf—which means it has little to no caffeine—how much people slept, their daily habits, and pre-existing health conditions, the results showed that people who had their coffee mainly in the morning were less likely to die early. The benefit was even stronger when it came to deaths from heart disease.

“Drinking coffee in the morning may be more strongly associated with a lower risk of mortality than drinking coffee later in the day,” said Dr. Qi. They also found that drinking more coffee seemed to help only the morning drinkers. Those who drank coffee all day did not see the same health benefit, no matter how much they drank.

One reason for this may be related to how caffeine affects our body clock, also known as the circadian rhythm, which is the internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Drinking coffee later in the day might interfere with the body’s natural signals for sleep, such as melatonin—a hormone that helps signal when it’s time to rest—and disrupt other daily functions. Also, coffee’s health benefits, such as reducing inflammation in the body—inflammation being the body’s response to injury or stress—might work best in the morning, when certain stress-related markers in the blood are usually higher. These ideas could help explain why the morning coffee pattern seems more helpful.

Summing up the research, the team pointed out how important the timing of our food and drinks might be. The clear link between drinking coffee in the morning and living longer—especially with fewer heart-related deaths—could offer an easy change for public health advice. “Higher coffee intake amounts were significantly associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality in participants with morning-type pattern but not in those with all-day-type pattern,” Dr. Qi noted.

This study adds to what we know about how daily habits can influence health. While more research is needed to fully understand why timing matters, the takeaway is simple: having your coffee earlier in the day might do more than just help you wake up—it could also support better long-term health.

Journal Reference

Wang X., Ma H., Sun Q., Li J., Heianza Y., Van Dam R.M., Hu F.B., Rimm E., Manson J.E., Qi L. “Coffee drinking timing and mortality in US adults.” European Heart Journal, 2025; 46(8): 749-759. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehae871

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