DRINKING coffee is one of life's simple pleasures, but there is a limit to how many cups of the good stuff you should consume each day.

Experts have said that coffee could actually help you live longer – but that you have to drink it a certain way for it be useful to your health.

Researchers looked at the habits of coffee drinks across the UK.

They studied people who drank no coffee, moderate drinkers, who would consume around three cups a day and people who would have more than three cups a day.

The study period was 11 years and the researchers found that those who drank three cups of ground coffee each day were 12 per cent less likely to die earlier – with this amount being linked to better health outcomes.

While those who drank three cups a day were less likely to die in general,the experts also found that they were 17 and 21 per cent less likely to die of heart disease or stroke.

Over the course of the study, conducted by doctors at the Semmelweis University in Budapest and Queen Mary University of London, 3.4 per cent of the moderate coffee drinkers died.

This compares to 3.7 per cent of those who abstained from coffee, and four per cent for those who drank more than three cups each day.

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But the experts stated that these outcomes were just in people who drank ground coffee and not the instant coffee you would buy in the supermarket.

They explained that there might be different outcomes in different types of coffee, due to the way they are processed and the different chemicals that might be added during the production chain.

You should also opt for decaffeinated coffee, they advised, as they said people who drink this type of coffee have a lower risk of death compared to those who drank no coffee at all.

Because of this, they said that the health benefits from coffee were likely to be from antioxidants, rather than the caffeine found in the beverages.

One of the study's co-authors, Dr Pal Maurovich-Horvat said the team used MRI scans to analyse the effect of regular coffee intake and the structure and function of the heart.

"We found that regular light-to-moderate coffee consumption is beneficial for the health of the heart, with the suggestion that it can slow down age-related cardiac changes", he said.

Heart disease is the biggest killer of British men and second biggest for women, claiming over 60,000 lives a year.

The NHS says that coronary heart disease is the term that describes what happens when your heart's blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries.

Official guidance states: "Over time, the walls of your arteries can become furred up with fatty deposits. This process is known as atherosclerosis and the fatty deposits are called atheroma.

"Atherosclerosis can be caused by lifestyle factors, such as smoking and regularly drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.

"You're also more at risk of getting atherosclerosis if you have conditions like high cholesterol, high blood pressure (hypertension) or diabetes."

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