Coffee and Your Heart
April 12, 2018
You heart coffee – does it heart you?
Ahhhh, coffee. Good? Bad? Neutral? A thousand studies have provided differing opinions, although many seem to place it in the positive camp provided it’s consumed in moderation.
A new Brasilian study, however, has found that drinking at least three cups a day may help to fight heart disease by reducing the build-up of plaque in the arteries (atherosclerosis) which can restrict blood flow.
Researchers from the University of São studies the coffee consumption habits of over 4,400 middle-aged individuals and also gave them CT scans to gauge their artery health. The results showed that those who drank less than three cups of coffee daily had greater incidence of coronary calcification. It was noted, however, that smokers or those who had ever smoked, did not enjoy this protective effect of coffee.
Clinical perspective - What Is New?
Researchers observed that the association between coffee consumption and coronary calcification was related to smoking status.
Drinking >3 cups/d of coffee was associated with lower odds of subclinical coronary atherosclerosis in never smokers.
What Are the Clinical Implications?
Based on their results and prior studies, consumption of coffee could exert a potential beneficial effect against coronary calcification and cardiovascular disease risk, particularly in nonsmokers.
It is possible that deleterious effects of smoking overwhelm the benefits of coffee intake on early cardiovascular disease injury, so this impact of coffee may occur only in people who have never smoked.
Meanwhile elsewhere -
In California, a judge has ruled that coffee companies must place cancer warnings on their products because the roasting process produces a very small amount of acrylamide, a known carcinogen. Research hasn’t found strong evidence that consumption of coffee could cause cancer, but the burden of proof was placed on the coffee industry to prove that the tiny amount of acrylamide in coffee posed no significant risk – something that the currently available research did not enable them to do.
Source: Australian Fitness network