Is coffee good for your heart?

We actually tell you how many cups of coffee is safe for you!

Debjani Arora | Published: November 15, 2017 7:04 am

Coffee lovers have been living in this dilemma for too long. The debate whether coffee is good or bad for your heart has been an eternal one. Cardiologists for a long time has been advising people with heart problems to stay off coffee or drink this widely favoured beverage in moderation. Well, this advice is totally justified. But studies suggest that there is no need to worry about coffee being a culprit in ruining your heart’s health.

Is coffee bad for your heart?

A study published in the journal Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care in 2007 examining the relationship between coffee and risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) found that diterpenes present in unfiltered coffee and caffeine each appear to increase the risk of coronary heart disease. A lower risk of coronary heart disease among moderate coffee drinkers might be due to antioxidants found in coffee. This means too much of coffee can actually be bad for your heart and set you up for a heart attack [1].

Another study that was published in the journal Food and function in the year 2012 which tried to explore the relationship between tea and coffee and how it affected heart health documented that both the beverages have a positive and negative effect on the organ. It noted that long-term moderate intake of coffee is not associated with detrimental effects in healthy individuals and may even protect against the risk of developing type II diabetes. The detrimental effects of coffee may be most likely due to high caffeine intake, and lipids from a boiled coffee can contribute to raising bad cholesterol [2].

Similarly, there are other studies published in journals which say that coffee in moderation due to its antibacterial properties can help to keep the heart healthy. The most recent study published in the journal Circulation in 2015 took thirty-six studies in consideration which included 1,279,804 participants and 36,352 CVD cases. A non-linear relationship of coffee consumption with CVD (cardiovascular disease risk) risk was identified.

Compared with the lowest category of coffee consumption (i.e. people who didn’t drink coffee), the relative risk of CVD was 0.95, for people who had five cups coffee per day it was 0.85, for people drinking three or more cups it was 0.89, it was 0.84 to 0.94 for people who had one or more cup of coffee. Looking at these separate outcomes, it was concluded that coffee consumption was non-linearly associated with both coronary heart disease and stroke risks. The study thus concluded that moderate coffee consumption was inversely associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated CVD risk [3].

So, coffee lovers rejoice drinking three cups of coffee might not put your heart at risk. But if you are a diabetic or have any such condition which could worsen due to coffee intake check with your doctor how much coffee is too much for you. While there are a lot of health benefits of coffee, it still might not be a suitable drink for you.

Reference:

[1]1: Cornelis MC, El-Sohemy A. Coffee, caffeine, and coronary heart disease. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2007 Nov;10(6):745-51. Review. PubMed PMID: 18089957.

[2]1: Bøhn SK, Ward NC, Hodgson JM, Croft KD. Effects of tea and coffee on cardiovascular disease risk. Food Funct. 2012 Jun;3(6):575-91. doi: 10.1039/c2fo10288a. Review. PubMed PMID: 22456725.

[3] Ding, M., Bhupathiraju, S. N., Satija, A., van Dam, R. M., & Hu, F. B. (2013). Long-term coffee consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease: a systematic review and a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Circulation, CIRCULATIONAHA-113.

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Published: November 15, 2017 7:04 am

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