Up to 5 cups of coffee a day safe for Americans -- and may provide health benefits, new study finds

Photo credit: Tom Winchester

Coffee drinkers can rejoice over the results of a new study from The American Heart Association that found consuming up to five cups of coffee a day is not only safe for people, doing so also may hold benefits for improved cardiovascular health. 

“Caffeine consumed in coffee is a key part of daily life for millions of people, and in our review of the most recent research, for most adults, intake of up to 400 mg of caffeine/day, the equivalent of up to 5 cups of caffeinated coffee per day without added sugars or fillers, is safe and does not increase cardiovascular risk,” Gregory M. Marcus, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, said. But Marcus distinguished between coffee and other types of caffeinated beverages. "High doses of caffeine, such as those found in energy drinks including energy shots, may have harmful effects on the heart and should be avoided,” he said.

Authors of the study also cautioned that the encouraging findings center on the consumption black coffee, and that adding other products to a daily brew could diminish some of the other benefits beyond improved cardiovascular health. And the health benefits didn't stop at just the cardiovascular system.

"Consuming caffeinated coffee without added sugars, flavors or cream was linked to a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, heart failure, and some irregular heart rhythms," AHA scientists said in a statement. Randomized trials even showed coffee consumption could lower the risks of atrial fibrillation, or AFIB, a condition that affects more than 10 million Americans.

"Adding sugar, flavored syrups, milk and/or cream to coffee likely reduces its potential health benefits, and more research is needed to understand the impact of these additives," the study's authors said. 

The scientists who conducted the study acknowledge caffeine as the world's most popular stimulant and said they used data going all the way back to the year 2737 B.C.

Read the full study, published in the medical journal Circulation, here.