Tag Archive for: heart rate

How Coffee Relates to CVD

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Researchers in Germany used a unique approach in the Hamburg City Health Study: they selected the first 10,000 volunteers. Volunteers who didn’t drink coffee were eliminated from the study, so they ended up with 9,009 subjects.

The researchers collected dietary data along with a variety of other demographic and physiological variables, integrating lifestyle-related behavior, comorbidities, biomarkers, electrocardiographic and echocardiographic data, and finally major cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). They divided up the subjects by coffee intake: low = less than three cups a day, medium = three or four cups per day, and high = more than four cups of coffee per day.

Results

This epidemiological cross-sectional study resulted in the following:

  • High coffee consumption correlated with slightly higher LDL cholesterol
  • Moderate and high coffee consumption correlated with lower systolic blood pressure and lower diastolic blood pressure
  • Different levels of coffee intake didn’t impact heart rhythms or function
  • Most important, coffee intake did not impact the presence of CVD nor prior cardiac events such as heart attacks and heart failure

Were the results of coffee and LDL cholesterol concerning? No—the difference was just five mg/dl, well within measurement error.

Is Coffee Safe to Drink?

Coffee was always safe to drink; the question was how our bodies responded to consuming it. Neither of these studies was perfect, but they show that even high coffee consumers, including myself, may not be at any significant risk for promoting or advancing CVD or cardiovascular events.

I think for most people coffee and caffeine are closely linked. What most of us don’t realize is that coffee is a complex liquid consisting of more than 1,000 bioactive substances, including phytochemicals that have proven beneficial for many organ systems; it’s not only a nervous system stimulant because of the caffeine content.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to coffee, I think it’s person-specific. Taste aside, some people may process caffeine differently, which may impact how much coffee someone could enjoy. These studies add to a body of work which shows that coffee is safe for the heart and other organs; other benefits or issues require further study. For me, time for another mug of Sumatra Roast.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31857-5

Research Update: Coffee and Heart Rhythms

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In one of the first jobs I ever had, the foreman would pour a half-cup of coffee and fill it up with water; he’d had a heart attack and his doctor told him to limit his coffee intake. Fifty years ago, physicians recommended that people avoid coffee if they had high blood pressure or had a cardiac event such as a heart attack. The thought was to lower the stimulating effect of caffeine to keep heart rate and blood pressure lower. In the interim, some studies showed that coffee contributes to cardiovascular disease and more recently, that it may not. So if you love coffee the way I love coffee, you may be encouraged by a couple of recent studies.

The first study examined the effect of coffee on heart rhythms in 100 subjects with a mean age of 39 who served as their own controls. All subjects had a variety of blood tests as well as genetic tests to determine if they were fast or slow processors of caffeine. They also wore a new-age heart rhythm monitor for the 14 days of the study. I’ve worn that monitor, and it gives accurate EKGs to monitor heart rate and heart rhythm abnormalities such as premature atrial contractions and atrial fibrillation.

The subjects were notified the evening before whether they were going to be on a two-day coffee drinking cycle or two-day caffeine avoidance; the idea was to track immediate impacts. The good news: there were no differences in abnormal rhythms on coffee days versus non-caffeine days and no impact of caffeine processing. One interesting observation: on the days subjects drank coffee, they walked more steps. We’ll look at the impact of coffee on cardiovascular disease events on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: N Engl J Med 2023;388:1092-100.