Chennai: In what has come as a good news to coffee lovers, the new three large, well-known heart disease studies circulated by the American Heart Association suggest that drinking one or more cups of caffeinated coffee may reduce heart failure risk.
The findings, however, found that drinking decaffeinated coffee did not have the same benefit and may be associated with an increased risk for heart failure. There is not yet enough clear evidence to recommend increasing coffee consumption to decrease the risk of heart disease with the same strength and certainty as stopping smoking, losing weight, or exercising.
Coronary artery disease, heart failure, and stroke are among the top causes of death from heart disease in the U.S.
“While smoking, age, and high blood pressure are among the most well-known heart disease risk factors, unidentified risk factors for heart disease remain,” according to David P Kao, senior author of the study, assistant professor of cardiology and medical director at the Colorado Center for Personalised Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, Colorado.
To analyse the outcomes of drinking caffeinated coffee, researchers categorised consumption as zero cups per day, one cup per day, two cups per day, and three cups per day.
In all three studies, people who reported drinking one or more cups of caffeinated coffee had an associated decreased long-term heart failure risk.
In the Framingham Heart and the Cardiovascular Health studies, the risk of heart failure over the course of decades decreased by 5-to-12 per cent per cup per day of coffee, compared with no coffee consumption.
In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, the risk of heart failure did not change between zero to one cup per day of coffee; however, it was about 30 per cent lower in people who drank at least two cups a day.
Drinking decaffeinated coffee appeared to have an opposite effect on heart failure risk significantly increasing the risk of heart failure in the Framingham Heart Study. In the Cardiovascular Health Study, however; there was no increase or decrease in risk of heart failure associated with drinking decaffeinated coffee.