If you love a jolt of java in the morning but worry about long-term health effects, sip away.

A new study has found that NOT drinking coffee is actually linked with an increased risk of stroke. That's right: not drinking coffee.

At least that was the finding among older women.

The study, published in the journal Stroke, from the American Heart Association, followed over 34,000 Swedish women between the ages of ages 49 to 83. All the women were free of heart disease at the start of the study in 1997, when they filled out a food frequency questionnaire.

The questionnaire made no distinction between regular and decaffeinated coffee but decaf coffee drinking in Sweden is low, the researchers note.

Over the 10-year study period, there were 1,680 strokes among the group.

The researchers found that the women who reported drinking more than a cup of coffee a day had a 22 to 25 per cent lower risk of stroke compared with those who drank less.

Drinking no coffee, or less than a cup a day, was associated with an increased risk of stroke.

Even after the researchers adjusted their findings for the volunteers' smoking status, body mass index, history of diabetes, high blood pressure or alcohol consumption, regular coffee drinking still seemed to have a protective effect against stroke.

While it's too soon to recommend that women take up more coffee drinking, the study should ease the concerns of some women, says lead researcher Susanna Larsson, of Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

"They shouldn't be afraid of coffee I would say. They shouldn't avoid it because they think it is unhealthy," she told CTV News.

Scientists say the protective effect they observed about coffee -- which was also seen in men in an earlier study by Karolinska Institute researchers -- needs more investigation.

Others point out that what the study found was a link, not a cause and effect conclusion.

"I think it's premature for anyone to change their coffee consumption habits based on the results of this one particular study. The findings are interesting, but I think far from conclusive," says Ahmed El Sohemy, an Associate Professor of Nutrigenomics in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto.

He adds: "While this study involved a fairly large number of individuals, the actual number of cases of stroke that were reported were quite few. So it's difficult to really determine whether or not coffee has any particular effect on the different kinds of stroke that can occur."

Still, if the coffee if responsible for the lower stroke risk observed in this study, it's not clear what it is about the coffee that may have the protective effects. But they suspect antioxidants, polyphenols and other compounds that reduce inflammation may be protecting the lining of arteries from damage.

With a report from CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip