Do you feel guilty that you need caffeine to wake up every morning? Worry not, since the drink could have some potential benefits to offer. A recent study by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health investigated the impact of coffee on weight loss.

Initially, the researchers were trying to understand if coffee could lower risk of insulin resistance that leads to diabetes. However, they unexpectedly discovered drinking coffee regularly aids weight loss.

During a period of 24 weeks, 126 overweight men and women based in Singapore were tracked. The participants who were of Chinese, Malay and Asian-Indian ethnicities were divided into two groups. Half was asked to randomly to consume four cups of coffee.

The other half drank a beverage that tastes like coffee but had no coffee or caffeine content. While coffee could not prevent them from getting diabetes, it was found that those who drank four cups religiously had shed 4 percent of overall body fat.

"We were indeed surprised by the observed weight loss that was specifically due to fat mass loss among coffee drinkers," Derrick Johnston Alperet, study author and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said.

"This loss in fat mass was not likely to be due to changes in lifestyle, namely diet and physical activity," Alperet clearly emphasized.

According to the researchers, coffee helped the participants lose fat due to a certain“metabolic reaction” during which metabolism is sped up. The reaction led to a drop in calories and body fat.

Certain doctors claim that drinking four cups of coffee was ill-advised. However, Alperet quoted previous research saying that Americans on average consume four cups and Europeans can go up to seven cups a day.

He cautioned, however, that “any decision for a non-coffee drinker to include 4 cups of coffee a day in his / her diet must be carefully calibrated with other caffeinated foods, beverages, and medications currently being consumed.”

Program director and assistant professor of the Department of Clinical Nutrition in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Lona Sandon, had reviewed the study and offered her perspective.

"Coffee, caffeine more specifically, has been on the radar for years for its potential to affect appetite, body weight and body fat. But the exact mechanism of how it may work to decrease body fat is highly debated," Sandon said.

More research needs to be done to confirm their findings focused on different types of body composition, as per the researchers.

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