New study finds coffee is good for you, but there's a catch

Fast Company

14 hours ago

Coffee drinking has been studied for decades as researchers have aimed to answer one burning question: Is it good for you? Or is it better to stick to joyless drinks like, you know, tap water and mint tea? While there have been cases for just about every argument, one recently published study in The Journal of Nutrition just added another check in the 'healthy' column.
Of course, there's a catch. You have to drink your coffee in a specific way.
For the study, researchers at Tufts University analyzed the coffee-drinking habits of 46,332 Americans from 1999 to 2018. They found that drinking a cup of coffee each day has some major effects in terms of lowering mortality rates.
One cup of joe per day was linked to a 16% lower risk of death, not just related to cardiovascular disease, which has been well-documented, but from any cause. More coffee is better, too—but not too much more. Drinking two to three cups per day showed a 17% lower risk of mortality. More coffee than that didn't offer any additional health benefits.
However, these benefits didn't apply to all coffee drinkers across the board. The benefits were most pronounced in those who drank theirs sans cream and sugar (or with a very little amount of sugar). The ones who added cream and sugar had the same rates of all-cause mortality as those who tended toward non-coffee drinks. Essentially, the more cream and sugar added, the lower the benefits.
'Coffee is among the most-consumed beverages in the world, and with nearly half of American adults reporting drinking at least one cup per day, it's important for us to know what it might mean for health,' said Fang Fang Zhang, senior author of the study and a professor at Tufts. 'The health benefits of coffee might be attributable to its bioactive compounds, but our results suggest that the addition of sugar and saturated fat may reduce the mortality benefits.'
Given that there is so much research around coffee, we always have to take findings with a grain of salt (and sans sweetener), but the good news does seem to be adding up for regular coffee drinkers. A study earlier this year similarly found lower rates of premature death for morning coffee drinkers. Another published in June 2025 found that coffee drinking is linked to healthy aging, particularly in women.