The kettle clicks off, and you reach for the French press you were given last Christmas. It makes a rich, heavy cup that tastes like a café. Your heart may do slightly better with the plain drip machine sitting beside it.
Key Takeaways
- Board-certified cardiologist Dr. Abid Husain’s advice is to drink coffee black or with a small splash of unsweetened milk, skip sugary syrups and creamers, and cut off caffeine early enough to protect your sleep. The research largely backs him up.
- The one tweak concerns brewing. Large studies link paper-filtered coffee (drip or pour-over), 1 to 4 cups a day, to the lowest heart risk. Unfiltered methods such as French press, boiled coffee and, to a lesser degree, espresso keep natural oils that raise cholesterol.
- A teaspoon of sugar doesn’t appear to wipe out coffee’s benefits. Large, syrupy specialty drinks are a different matter.
- Morning coffee drinkers showed the heart benefit, while all-day sippers did not.
- If your blood pressure runs 160/100 or higher, two or more cups a day was linked t