Do you know that Coffee and heart attack chances are linked? Read our article to know about how drinking coffee can can be good for your heart.
Research has shown that drinking one or more cups of coffee a day may reduce the risk of heart failure. However, it must be caffeinated.
Results from the research show that the more coffee people drank, the lower their risk of heart failure. People who drink decaf are however excluded from this benefit.
An assistant professor of cardiology and medical director at the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine, Dr. David Kao said coffee and caffeine are often considered bad for the heart.
“The consistent relationship between increasing caffeine consumption and decreasing heart failure risk turns that assumption on its head”, he said.
Heart failure, commonly known as congestive heart failure, occurs when the heart muscle becomes weakened and can no longer pump blood effectively. Factors such as high blood pressure, heart valve disease, heart attack, diabetes, and other diseases and conditions can result in heart failure.
Before we proceed, here are certain beliefs the general public hold about coffee:
1. Coffee is Addictive
The word “addictive” is relative in this context. Coffee contains caffeine, which stimulates your nervous system. Although regular consumption will likely make you mildly addicted, experts confirm that it bears no similarity to dependency on drugs or alcohol. The rich taste of coffee is what most people are like, most of the time.
2. Coffee Can aid Weight Loss
Caffeine stimulates the metabolic rate by as much as 11% and also serves as an appetite suppressant. This is probably the reason many people love taking coffee regularly – to achieve weight loss. Aside from burning calories, coffee consumption enables fat oxidation – the process by which your body breaks down fat as a source of energy.
For people on a weight loss journey, drinking coffee may help you achieve your aim.
3. Consuming Too Much Coffee May Increase Death Risk
Studies have shown that there is no correlation between coffee consumption and an increased risk of death.
It’s safe to consume about 400 mg of caffeine daily, which is a moderate amount considering the average American gets about 200 mg in about 3 cups of coffee they drink every day.
4. Coffee Disrupts Sleep at Night
Usually, it takes about four to five hours for your body to flush out the caffeine from coffee. Everything being equal, a few cups during the day should not affect your sleep at night. However, moderation is the key. You should avoid coffee about six hours before bedtime.
5. Coffee Prevent and Fights Certain Diseases
Research has shown that by drinking a certain amount of coffee daily you can reduce your risk of colon and breast cancer, Type-2 Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease.
Furthermore, coffee is helpful to ease headaches, fight depression, and even lower suicide risk in men and women.
What’s the Relationship Between Coffee and Heart Attack Risk?
Since other studies show that coffee can reduce the risk of other illnesses and diseases, it was only a matter of time until one of those studies was about coffee and its effects on heart disease.
Study about Coffee and Heart Attack connection
Three large health studies done on with 21,361 participants, using a method called machine learning that utilizes computers to find meaningful patterns in large amounts of data.
“Usually, researchers pick things they suspect would be risk factors for heart failure such as smoking, and then look at smokers versus nonsmokers,” said the senior author, Dr. David P. Kao. “But machine learning identifies variables that are predictive of either increased or decreased risk, but that you haven’t necessarily thought of”.
Dr. Kao and his colleagues, while using this technique, found 204 variables that are associated with the risk for heart failure. They observed the 41 strongest factors, which include smoking, marital status, B.M.I., cholesterol, blood pressure, and the consumption of various foods.
In the three studies, regular consumption of coffee affected strongly than any other dietary factor with a decreased long-term risk for heart failure.
The Findings from the study
Drinking a cup a day or less did not affect, but two cups a day resulted in a 31% reduced risk, and three cups or more reduced risk by 29 percent. Not enough participants drank more than three cups daily to know if more coffee would decrease the risk further.
This is not the first study to confirm the numerous health benefits of coffee drinking. “In other studies, coffee drinking has been associated with a reduced risk for stroke and coronary heart disease as well,” Dr. Kao said, though “we didn’t find this in our study.”
However, the study was unable to account for different types of coffee or brewing methods or the effect of additives such as sugar or cream. There was no association of a decreased risk of heart failure with drinking decaffeinated coffee. One study suggested it might increase the risk.
The authors suggested that caffeine may be an important factor, but they still do not know the mechanism for its effect.
Contrary to the general observational studies that begin with a hypothesis and then develop evidence for it, this machine learning analysis started with no hypothesis.
Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale, not a part of the work, described the approach as “innovative”.
With the result from this research, should you start drinking coffee or increase the amount you consume daily to reduce your risk for heart failure? “We don’t know enough from the results of this study to recommend this,” said Dr. Kao. He says that there is a need of more research.
Bottom Line
Moderation is the key to preventing certain illnesses and diseases. Enjoy coffee in moderation, not to secure your heart alone, but your general health and well-being.
Eat nutritious diets, sleep well, limit your alcohol intake, and exercise regularly. Don’t hesitate to see your doctor when you notice something unusual in your body.
These are a few ways to prevent heart failure.