I love coffee… the smell, the taste and even just holding a warm cup on a cool winter’s day. Because of this, I could drink a lot of a coffee if I don’t pace myself. It’s easy to keep filling my mug with a pot brewing in the kitchen or the Keurig at work. But recently, I read an article that will prompt me to put on the breaks when it comes to drinking coffee.

Over the years, there have been many studies conducted on drinking coffee. As a result, coffee has been shown to have benefits re stroke, heart failure, cancers, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. But like my mom used to say, too much of any good thing, might be too much. Balance and moderation are usually principles to live by.

So, researchers decided to look at how much coffee and tea people drink in order to determine if too much is too much in terms of the impact coffee has on cognitive decline. And yes, they found an impact. The study had 8451 participants with an average age of 67.8 years. The breakdown in the study groups was high, moderate and no consumption in terms of drinking coffee and tea. The high consumers drank 4 or cups daily; moderate 1-3 cups; and zero for the non-consumers.

In terms of cognitive function, they found that those with moderate coffee consumption had slower cognitive decline in fluid intelligence compared to the nondrinkers and moderate drinkers. Fluid intelligence includes abstract reasoning, pattern recognition, and logical thinking. Yet, moderate coffee consumption seemed to have benefit. Tea drinkers were also included in the study and showed a different pattern. Those who never drank tea had a greater decline in fluid intelligence than the moderate or high consumption tea drinkers. But back to coffee!

While this is only one study, the takeaway seems to be to limit your daily coffee consumption to 3 cups a day to preserve your cognitive function. This could be a safe and easy ways to precent cognitive decline and diseases like Alzheimer’s. So, if a few cups of coffee daily could help, drink away and enjoy!