Many people feel that a cup of coffee is essential when it comes to starting the day. The caffeine boost definitely can help us feel more awake. We also tend to like an afternoon cup of coffee to get past the afternoon slump.

Sometimes people try to break their caffeine habit and stop drinking coffee, but is coffee actually bad for us? There is evidence that coffee has health benefits.

A recent study by UK Biobank found that people who drink coffee are less likely to develop chronic liver disease. A total of 494,585 people participated in the study which tracked their coffee consumption for about a dozen years.

Watch the video below to learn more about this new study and which type of coffee is most effective at preventing chronic liver disease.

Besides being good for your liver, drinking coffee also has other health benefits. Studies have shown the people who drink coffee have a lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and a reduced risk of heart failure. In addition, drinking coffee can lower your risk for developing multiple types of cancer including prostate cancer, skin cancer, and hepatocellular cancer, which is the most common type of liver cancer.

While coffee has proven itself to be healthy, what you put in your coffee may not be. Many people don’t drink their coffee black, and added sweetener, flavoring and cream can be high in fat and calories.

It’s also important to make sure you don’t drink too much coffee. One cup of coffee equals 8 ounces. That venti at Starbucks is 20 ounces. That means that one cup is really two and a half servings of coffee. According to the MayoClinic, it’s a good idea to drink no more than four 8 oz servings of coffee per day in order to consume no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine.

How many cups of coffee do you usually drink each day? Did you know that coffee was healthy? Do you add cream and sugar to your coffee?