A few cups of coffee each morning can help protect a person against heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, a new study says.

Drinking three cups of coffee a day — or about 200 to 300 milligrams of caffeine — lowered the risk of health problems linked to the heart or metabolism, researchers found.

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“The findings highlight that promoting moderate amounts of coffee or caffeine intake as a dietary habit to healthy people might have far-reaching benefits,” said lead researcher Dr. Chaofu Ke, a medical statistician with Suzhou Medical College of Soochow University in China.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 500,000 people ages 37 to 73 participating in the long-term U.K. Biobank research project.

Out of that group, they identified more than 172,000 people who’d reported their caffeine intake, and another 188,000 who’d reported their coffee or tea consumption.

The researchers compared people’s caffeine intake to whether they had developed two or more signs of cardiometabolic disease. That term relates to risk factors that can harm heart health, such as diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess body weight.

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Results showed that any level of coffee or caffeine intake lowered a person’s risk of suffering multiple health problems related to heart or metabolism.

But the best results came with moderate intake of coffee or caffeine, they found.

People who drank three cups of coffee a day had a 48% lower risk of heart or metabolic disease, compared to those who drank no coffee.

And those who got 200 to 300 milligrams of caffeine daily had a 41% reduced risk compared to those who consumed none or less than 100 milligrams, researchers found.

The new study was published Sept. 17 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Any lower risk would help protect a person’s health, as people with heart or metabolic diseases are four to seven times more likely to die from any cause, researchers said in a journal news release. They also have higher risk of disability and mental stress.