For coffee aficionados, there’s a lot to love about coffee. The aroma. The flavor. The morning ritual. The high-voltage jolt of energy that gets the day moving. Researchers in Spain have discovered that a generous dose of coffee every day just might reduce the risk of developing heart disease, too. Especially for women.

Researchers at Madrid’s Autonoma University, led by Dr. Esther Lopez-Garcia, used data from two massive, long-term lifestyle studies to track any adverse health reactions to a lifetime of drinking as much as 6 cups of coffee a day. The studies under evaluation, the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and the Nurses’ Health Study involved more than 42,000 men and 84,000 women, respectively, who participated in the study from the 1970s to 2004. All study participants were free of all signs of cancer or heart disease at the beginning of the study.

When risk of death due to heart disease was compared in follow-up questionnaires completed from 1980 to 2004, female coffee drinkers were at 25% decreased risk of dying from heart disease than their non-coffee-drinking counterparts. Their risk of dying from diseases other than heart disease or cancer was 18% lower than the non-drinkers.

Men drinking the same amount of coffee each day did not realize the same health benefits the women did but coffee consumption did not adversely affect the men’s health or diminish their life expectancy, either.

Previous studies indicate regular coffee consumption is linked to a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In the Spanish study, there was no significant difference in the reduced risk of death due to heart disease between drinkers of naturally caffeinated coffee and those who drank decaf. This finding leads researchers to conclude the heart-healthy benefits of drinking coffee is more likely a matter of the beverage’s high antioxidant content or other lifestyle factors of the study’s participants than the coffee’s caffeine content.

The June 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine carries the full details of this study.