The Nuance
This Is the Healthiest Way to Drink Coffee
The optimal amount, preparation, and timing — according to the latest research
Gertrude Stein once wrote that coffee “is a lot more than just a drink; it’s something happening.”
The more experts study coffee, the more that “something” seems to be good for us.
Just this month, a large study in the journal PLOS Medicine found evidence that those who drink 1 to 3 cups of coffee a day enjoy a roughly 14% lower risk for stroke and about the same drop in dementia risk compared to people who abstain.
As usual, moderate consumption was associated with the greatest benefit. When people drank four cups or more, their risk for stroke and dementia drifted back toward baseline, the study found.
This same daily dose has appeared again and again in the coffee research, which at this point is robust and mostly positive. “The greatest benefits appear to be [with] about 3 to 5 cups per day,” says Walter Willett, MD, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Willett co-wrote a comprehensive research review on coffee and caffeine, which appeared last year in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Like the new PLOS…
