LOS ANGELES — To reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, new research from Harvard University scientists offers an eye-opening suggestion: Drink more coffee.

In a large epidemiological study, the researchers found that people who increased their coffee consumption by at least one cup per day over a period of years were 11 percent less likely to get Type 2 diabetes compared with people whose coffee-drinking habits didn’t change.

On the flip side, people who dialed back their coffee habit by at least one cup a day were 17 percent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.

The study was published Thursday in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. Previous studies have found a correlation between coffee consumption and a lowered risk of Type 2 diabetes, but this was the first study to look at how changes in coffee consumption affect that risk.

“Coffee is pretty fascinating,” said Shilpa Bhupathiraju, a nutritional epidemiologist and the lead author of the paper. “It seems to be associated with a lower risk for many chronic diseases.”

The findings are based on analysis of three long-term and large-scale studies that tracked the diet, lifestyle and medical conditions of more than 120,000 medical professionals over 20 years.

Previous work has shown that chemical compounds in coffee, not the caffeine, are likely responsible for the association between coffee drinking and lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.

“We know that phenolic compounds in coffee improves glucose metabolism in animal models,” Bhupathiraju said.