Three different studies carried out by a team of researchers have suggested that drinking two to three cups of coffee daily can lower the risk of heart disease and prolong life.
Findings from the studies are expected to be presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 71st Annual Scientific Session. The 3-day programme will be held in Washington, DC, from April 2.
In a report published on EurekAlert, a science-based website managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the researchers said their analyses provided reassurance that coffee may actually be heart protective.
One of them, who doubles as a professor and head of Arrhythmia Research at the Alfred Hospital and Baker Heart Institute in Melbourne, Australia, Peter Kistler, said data gathered suggested that coffee intake should not be discouraged.
“Because coffee can quicken heart rate, some people worry that drinking it could trigger or worsen certain heart issues. This is where general medical advice to stop drinking coffee may come from. But our data suggest that daily coffee intake shouldn’t be discouraged, but rather included as a part of a healthy diet for people with and without heart disease. We found coffee drinking had either a neutral effect—meaning that it did no harm—or was associated with benefits to heart health, “he said
Kistler and his team reportedly used data from the UK BioBank, a large-scale database with health information from over half a million people.
For the first study, the researchers examined data from 382,535 individuals without known heart disease to see whether coffee drinking played a role in the development of heart disease or stroke during the 10 years of follow-up.
They said participants’ average age was 57 years and half of them were women.
The second study included 34,279 individuals who had some form of cardiovascular disease at baseline.
“Coffee intake at two to three cups a day was associated with lower odds of dying compared with having no coffee,” Kistler said.
He noted that importantly, consuming any amount of coffee was not associated with a higher risk of heart rhythm problems, including atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter, which is often what clinicians are concerned about.
Kistler said of the 24,111 people included in the analysis who had an arrhythmia at baseline, drinking coffee was associated with a lower risk of death.
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He noted that for example, people with AFib who drank one cup of coffee a day were nearly 20 per cent less likely to die than non-coffee drinkers.”
“Clinicians generally have some apprehension about people with known cardiovascular disease or arrhythmias continuing to drink coffee, so they often err on the side of caution and advise them to stop drinking it altogether due to fears that it may trigger dangerous heart rhythms,” he said.
In the third study, the researchers looked at whether there were any differences in the relationship between coffee and cardiovascular disease depending on whether someone drank instant or ground coffee or caffeinated or decaf.
They found, once again, two to three cups a day to be associated with the lowest risk of arrhythmias, blockages in the heart’s arteries, stroke or heart failure regardless of whether they had ground or instant coffee.
However, while two to three cups of coffee a day was recommended, Kistler warned that people should not increase their coffee intake if it makes them feel anxious or uncomfortable.
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