Drinking 3 cups of coffee a day cuts your risk of dying from heart disease

Drinking three cups of coffee a day cuts your risk of dying from heart disease by up to 17%, study shows.

• Semmelweis University experts explored how coffee might affect heart health
• They grouped 468,629 UK adults by their level of daily coffee consumption
• They found that drinking three cups of coffee a day lowered stroke risk by 21%
• Higher coffee consumption was also not associated with negative outcomes

Your risk of death from heart disease can be reduced by up to 17 per cent by moderate consumption of coffee — up to three cups a day — a study has found. Researchers from the Semmelweis University in Budapest investigated the association between coffee habits and incidences of heart attack and stroke.They found that moderate coffee consumption can also reduce your risk of stroke by up to 21 per cent over people who don’t drink coffee at all.

‘This is the largest study to systematically assess the cardiovascular effects of regular coffee consumption in a population without diagnosed heart disease,‘ said paper author and cardiologist Judit Simon of Hungary’s Semmelweis University

‘Our results suggest that regular coffee consumption is safe, as even high daily intake was not associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality after a follow-up of 10 to 15 years’.

‘Moreover, 0.5 to 3 cups of coffee per day was independently associated with lower risks of stroke, death from cardiovascular disease and death from any cause.‘

In the study, Dr Simon and colleagues compared the health and coffee consumption habits of 468,629 adults over an average period of 11 years. Data for the study was collected from the UK Biobank — a large-scale database containing detailed genetic and health information on half-a-million participants.

The team divided the subjects into three groups based on their daily coffee intake, with 22 per cent reporting that they didn’t drink coffee regularly, 58.4 per cent drinking a half to three cups a day and 19.5 per cent having more than three cups.

At the start of the study, none of the participants had any sign of heart disease — and the cohort had an average age of around 56.2 years.  The researchers found that moderate coffee consumption — that is, up to three cups daily — was associated with a 12 per cent lower risk of death from any cause and a 17 per cent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

Furthermore, the team found that moderate coffee drinkers appeared to have a 21 per cent lower risk of incident stroke than those who did not drink coffee at all.

To explore potential mechanisms that might explain these associations, the team then analysed the heart structure and function of 30,650 participants using data collected by magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans.

‘The imaging analysis indicated that compared with participants who did not drink coffee regularly, daily consumers had healthier sized and better functioning hearts,’ Dr Simon explained.

‘This was consistent with reversing the detrimental effects of ageing on the heart. Our findings suggest that coffee consumption of up to 3 cups per day is associated with favourable cardiovascular outcomes,’ Dr Simon concluded. While further studies are needed to explain the underlying mechanisms, the observed benefits might be partly explained by positive alterations in cardiac structure and function.’

The full findings of the study were presented at the 2021 congress of the European Society of Cardiology

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