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Up to 5 cups of coffee per day may potentially lower heart disease risk, doctors say

Cup of coffee with beans (Ricky Herawan / 500px/Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — Drinking up to five cups of coffee a day is safe for most adults, and regular coffee consumption may be linked to a lower risk of stroke, diabetes and heart failure, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA).

The official report, published Monday in the journal Circulation, addresses years of conflicting advice regarding caffeine and the heart.

“Coffee is potentially linked to lower risks of type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart failure, though its relationship with blood pressure is complex and data isn’t entirely consistent across the board,” said Dr. Jennifer Miao, a board-certified cardiologist and ABC News Medical Unit Fellow.

For decades, doctors frequently advised people with heart issues to avoid stimulants. However, this comprehensive review marks a major shift by distinguishing between natural coffee beans and synthetic caffeine.

While older guidelines relied heavily on lower-quality studies, the AHA panel integrated recent clinical trials showing that even for patients who have had a procedure to address an irregular heart rhythm, daily coffee can cut the risk of the condition returning by 39%.

Habitual coffee consumption was also associated with a 20% to 30% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The AHA warns that your daily brewing method drastically impacts these potential health benefits, however. These heart-healthy links apply strictly to paper-filtered or instant coffee. Unfiltered options, including a French press, espresso, or Turkish coffee, retain a natural compound called cafestol. Cafestol raises low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, the “bad” cholesterol that can clog arteries over time.

Crucially, these positive heart associations do not translate to highly concentrated synthetic caffeine products like energy drinks, shots, or pills. The AHA notes that high-caffeine energy drinks are consistently linked to cardiovascular harm. These products are associated with sudden spikes in blood pressure and acute episodes of irregular heart rhythms, even in healthy adults.

“The AHA distinguishes between coffee and energy drinks, which can pose significant cardiovascular harm,” said Miao. “In large amounts, energy drinks can trigger life-threatening heart rhythm issues and even cardiac arrest.”

Your ideal caffeine limit is heavily influenced by your genetics. Inherited variations in a liver enzyme gene called CYP1A2 dictate how fast your body metabolizes stimulants. While some people can easily clear 400 milligrams of caffeine, which is about three to five cups of coffee, others may experience sleep disruption and blood pressure spikes with far less caffeine.

Doctors still caution that anyone with an underlying heart problem or existing risks of developing heart disease or stroke should talk to their provider about what amount of coffee or caffeine may be safe for them to consume.

“Consume caffeine in moderation, not solely for potential health benefits,” Miao advised. Everyone’s sensitivity is different, so if you have any underlying conditions or concerns, please talk to your doctor.”

Yonathan Daniel, M.D., is an internal medicine resident physician at NYU Langone Health and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Trump’s vaccine order is counterproductive and ‘wrong on so many levels,’ GOP lawmaker says

By CNN
(CNN) — Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, an increasingly sharp critic of President Donald Trump, on Sunday called the president’s vaccine order to separate injections for measles, mumps and rubella “wrong on so many levels” because, among other things, it would require children to receive more shots.“Let’s just take it from the perspective of the parent,” Cassidy, a doctor who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “Now, instead of going to the doctor twice to get their child vaccinated, they have to go six times … Instead of mom or dad missing work twice, you know, coming out of their pocket, if you will, to take their child to the doctor, they have to miss work or take vacation or personal leave six times. This is inconvenient. It’s going to contribute to an increased loss of income.”“The president’s proposal is going to end up with more children being sick. And so who wants that? No one should want that,” Cassidy said.During a later appearance on ABC News’ “This Week,” the Louisiana senator said: “This is why the president’s poll numbers are down, because you’ve lost sight of affordability for the parent, you’ve lost sight of the convenience for the American family, you’ve lost sight of that which is driving higher costs in health care.”CNN has reached out the White House for a reaction to Cassidy’s criticism.Trump’s order says the combination vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella, called MMR, “should be administered in three separate single-disease shots,” and all childhood immunizations should be given at separate medical visits.Immunologists and vaccine experts say there’s no valid reason to do that.“Nothing bad can happen from what we are doing,” Trump said while speaking in the Oval Office on Monday. “The worst thing that could happen would be nothing happens. We’re not going to lose anything.”The executive order marked the latest blow for Cassidy, who cast a deciding vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary despite deep concerns about his anti-vaccine views.Ahead of that confirmation vote, Cassidy secured a series of commitments from Kennedy — including that the two would have an “unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship” and Kennedy would not seek to undermine the government’s vaccine policies.But Kennedy began testing that pact within months, overhauling the government’s main vaccine advisory panel and amplifying skepticism of key vaccine policies — all while downplaying what has grown into the worst measles outbreak in the country in decades.Their already-frosty relationship hit a breaking point late last year, after the abrupt firing of the then-head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kennedy’s subsequent push to revamp the nation’s childhood vaccine schedule.Kennedy’s allies later joined Trump in openly backing a primary challenge to Cassidy that successfully denied him renomination earlier this spring.Since then, Cassidy has shown far greater willingness to criticize Trump and Kennedy, opposing the president on key issues such as the Iran war and his effort to establish an “anti-weaponization” fund. Cassidy and Kennedy’s relationship is effectively non-existent, people close to the two men said, and the two have rarely spoken in the last several months.Still, Cassidy has stressed that despite feeling freer to express his views, his final months in the Senate are not meant to serve as a revenge tour.That did not prevent him on Sunday from lashing out at the president’s latest policy, which he has also done in a series of social media posts.“If it wasn’t so potentially tragic, you would break out laughing at a comment like that,” Cassidy, told CNN’s Jake Tapper about Trump’s claim that nothing would happen as a result of what experts say is a dramatic reshaping of US vaccine policy.“As a physician who has seen people either die or get seriously ill from diseases that can be prevented by vaccines, this has the potential to decrease the protection that a child would receive against diseases which can be deadly,” Cassidy said.He added that if Trump is looking to improve children’s health while helping parents with costs, “this is the wrong thing to do.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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