Is Hot Coffee Better for You Than Cold Brew?

Most people are team hot coffee or team cold coffee. While sure, you might drink both, you also probably have a favorite. But is hot coffee better for you than a cold brew? As it turns out, kind of.

While there has been very little research on the health benefits of hot coffee versus cold, HuffPost spoke with Dr. Majid Basit, a cardiologist at Memorial Herman in Sugar Land, Texas, about what is out there. According to Basit, it all comes down to antioxidants.

Hot brewed coffee has been shown to have more antioxidants than cold brew. Antioxidants can help to prevent and repair cell damage by counteracting oxidative stress caused by free radicals. Oxidative stress is believed to be linked to diseases such as cancer and heart disease as well as diabetes.

But that doesn’t mean cold brew is bad for you. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, and some, like nutrition expert Frank Hu of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, say both brew types can have equal benefits.

Hu said that regardless of whether you choose cold or hot coffee, both provide, a “decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease, and dying prematurely.”

While hot coffee might have more antioxidants, at the end of the day, when drank in moderation, you’ll be getting coffee’s health benefits regardless of which type you drink.