Coffee is the basis of millions of people’s morning routine. Now, Finland has shown a link between coffee consumption and body composition in new research.
Researchers published the study in the European Journal of Nutrition and examined 2,264 people from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966. All participants were 46 years old when the health measure was taken.
In fact, people who reported drinking more coffee had lower total body fat, lower visceral fat, and more skeletal muscle mass, even though their body mass index (BMI) was generally similar for coffee-consumption groups.
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Thus, the findings are interesting, but it does not mean that drinking five cups of coffee causes fat loss or builds muscle. The study was cross-sectional, so coffee intake and body composition were assessed at the same time. So it can identify an association but cannot establish cause and effect.
What Did The Study Find?
The researchers divided participants according to their usual coffee consumption, from those who did not drink coffee to those who drink five or more cups a day.
The highest coffee-consumption group had the lowest average body fat percentage and the highest skeletal muscle mass among the groups studied. Studies reported that participants who drink at least five cups daily had an average body fat percentage of about 27.14%, compared with about 29.67% among non-coffee drinkers. The average skeletal muscle mass was about 32.46 kg, compared to 30.88 kg among non-consumers.
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Visceral fat is stored around internal organs as well, but it was lower for people who had higher coffee consumption.
Interestingly, these differences were not reflected in BMI to the same extent. BMI and waist-related measurements were generally similar among the groups, suggesting body weight alone did not account for the differences in body composition.
This is important because BMI does not distinguish between fat and muscle. Two people can have a similar BMI while having substantially different proportions of muscle and body fat.
Researchers also found Metabolic And Hormonal Differences
The study also looked beyond body composition and examined blood metabolites, cardiometabolic markers, and sex hormones.
Higher coffee consumption was associated with lower levels of several branched-chain amino acids or BCAAs, such as leucine, isoleucine, and valine, in men and women.
These amino acids are essential nutrients for protein metabolism. Researchers are also interested in circulating BCAA levels since elevated levels have been associated in previous studies with metabolic conditions like insulin resistance.
The Finnish researchers found further differences between men and women.
Coffee consumption among men was associated with lower fasting insulin and some other measures related to glucose metabolism. The researchers also observed differences in testosterone and sex hormone-binding globulin, or SHBG.
The hormonal patterns were more complex than simply showing that coffee increased or decreased a particular hormone. Some measures moved in different directions, and the associations differed between men and women.
The results could aid scientists in investigating biological pathways of coffee metabolism and body composition, they said.
But the study does not suggest that coffee was the cause of these hormonal or metabolic differences.
Why could coffee be related to lower body fat?
The study was not designed to determine why coffee drinkers had different body-composition measurements.
One possible explanation is caffeine. Caffeine has been shown to activate the central nervous system, and a small boost of alertness and energy expenditure during a period of time can be attributed to caffeine. Fat oxidation and exercise performance also depend on caffeine.
Coffee also has many other compounds besides caffeine; chlorogenic acids for example, are among them. These compounds are being studied for their possible effects on glucose metabolism, inflammation, and energy regulation.
But these mechanisms remain possible explanations rather than conclusions from this study.
It’s also possible that coffee consumption is simply related to other lifestyle characteristics, which were not fully captured by the research.
The researchers adjusted their analysis for such factors as BMI, education, smoking, physical activity, and alcohol consumption. But observational studies can still be affected by confounding, where another factor contributes to both coffee consumption and body composition.
Five Cups A Day Is Not A Weight-Loss Prescription
The most important point for coffee drinkers is that the study does not recommend drinking five or more cups of coffee every day.
The investigators considered people who already had different coffee consumption habits. They did not assign participants to drink five cups daily and then measure whether their body fat decreased.
That distinction is really important.
If someone starts drinking coffee because they want to lose weight, they do not have to expect the same body composition as in the study.
Coffee is also highly caffeinated according to the serving size, preparation method, and type of coffee. Everyone has a different tolerance to coffee.
Caffeine could cause sleep disturbance, nervousness, anxiety, digestive symptoms, or even a racing heartbeat in some people. Sugar, syrups, cream, and other high-calorie ingredients can dramatically alter the nutritional content of a coffee drink as well.
The study has several important limitations.
The research has limitations that make it difficult to interpret as a direct health recommendation.
First, it was cross-sectional and therefore researchers could not determine whether coffee consumption caused differences in body composition.
Second, coffee intake was based on participants' reported habits. The study did not have detailed information on every aspect of coffee preparation, including precise serving size and all additions to the drink.
Third, body composition was estimated using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). This is an indirect method that estimates body fat and muscle based partly on body water and tissue conductivity. The researchers themselves noted that these measurements depend on certain assumptions.
There is also conflicting evidence from other research.
In a Finnish study from 2026, older adults received more direct DXA body composition measurements and found no statistically significant relationship between coffee consumption and body composition measures. This indicates the relationship between coffee and body composition remains unsettled.
In South Korea, another large study also found associations between coffee consumption and more favourable body-composition measures, but researchers again stressed that longitudinal and intervention studies are needed to determine causality.
Should you start drinking more coffee?
Not based on this study alone.
The findings are in line with the increasing literature that coffee use is associated with metabolism and body composition differences. But they don’t set a target for the amount of coffee to be right for weight loss or muscle building.
For people who already enjoy coffee and tolerate caffeine well, the results provide another area for researchers to study. But building muscle is still dependent on resistance training, protein, and whole-body nutrition, and reducing body fat consistently needs to be a part of a healthy long-term diet and a healthy diet and activity program.
In any event, the main conclusion of the study is more complicated than even the headline might suggest. People who consumed more coffee, including those who drank five or more cups a day, had less body fat, less visceral fat, and more skeletal muscle, based on the same BMI measures. Yet whether coffee itself caused those differences remains unclear.
Long-term and controlled studies will be needed to determine whether coffee or certain compounds in it directly influence body composition.
As a result, for now, at least the research is a nice association but not a reason to turn your coffee mug into a fitness program for five cups a day.
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