A recent study has found that drinking coffee can help lower the chances of getting type 2 diabetes.

Researchers of the study, published in the journal Diabetologia, revealed that people who increased the amount of coffee they drink in a day to more than one cup during a four-year period had an 11 percent lower risk of becoming diabetic, Fox News reported.

Shilpa Bhupathiraju, lead author and research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health's nutrition department, told Fox that the latest discovery supports pre-existing studies that have found a link between drinking coffee and reduced diabetes risk.

"The link between coffee consumption and type 2 diabetes is pretty well established," Bhupathiraju. "What we don't know is what happens when people change their consumption. That's never been studied, but that reflects people changing their diet in real life."

The study took data compiled from three main studies -- two from the Nurses' Health Study and one from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Bhupathiraju and her research team reviewed the diets of several thousand individuals every four years while charting medical and lifestyle changes of those same groups every two years.

Between the study period of 1986 and 2006, 7,269 people had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The increase or decrease in coffee consumption effected the individuals' risk of diabetes, Fox reported.

"Compared to people who made no changes to coffee consumption habits over a four-year period, those who increased coffee by more than a cup each day had an 11 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes," Bhupathiraju said. "Those who decreased coffee consumption by more than a cup had a 17 percent higher risk of type 2 diabetes."

Bhupathiraju said caffeinated coffee contains several beneficial ingredients that impact metabolism and cardiovascular health.

"Coffee has a lot of bioactive compounds and phnolic compounds, such as chlorogenic acid. Chlorogenic acid improves glucose metabolism in animal models that have been studied," she said. "Coffee also has other compounds like lignans, and it's also a source of magnesium, which is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. So the biology is definitely there."