Posted on 10/10/2024 4:00:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
Caffeine might improve vascular health by assisting in the regeneration of blood vessels, according to recent research with lupus patients, suggesting a potential dietary approach for managing cardiovascular risks in inflammatory disease conditions. New research indicates that caffeine consumption may boost vascular health by supporting the regeneration of blood vessel linings.
This investigation, conducted by Italian scientists on lupus patients, highlights caffeine’s potential benefits for those at increased risk of vascular diseases due to inflammatory conditions.
Caffeine and Heart Health
A new study published on October 9 in Rheumatology by Oxford University Press suggests that increased caffeine intake could improve heart health.
Vascular disease, which involves the damage of blood vessels, leads to severe outcomes like heart attacks and strokes—some of the leading causes of death worldwide. For patients suffering from inflammatory rheumatic diseases, including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the risks are significantly higher. This heightened risk stems from both the diseases themselves and some treatments, especially those involving cortisone derivatives.
Enhancing Vascular Health Through Diet
Until now, doctors’ recommendations to reduce these vascular risks were essentially about avoiding risk factors. This included stopping inflammation, decreasing cortisone medications, as well as conventional recommendations like not smoking, reducing cholesterol, and controlling high blood pressure.
But researchers from Sapienza University of Rome, in Italy, involved in this study believe patients may be able to improve vascular health by doing something that’s actually enjoyable. The laboratory results of these investigators suggest that caffeine, present in coffee, tea, and cocoa, actively helps endothelial progenitor cells, the group of cells that helps regenerate the lining of blood vessels and are involved in vascular growth.
Caffeine’s Role in Cardiovascular Wellness
It’s well known that a diet rich in vitamin D (found in oily fish and eggs) and A (found in many fruits) and polyunsaturated fatty acid, and low in sodium, seems to play a role in decreasing the inflammatory burden. Scientists have wondered about caffeine as well. Besides the well-known stimulant effect on the body, caffeine also exerts an anti-inflammatory effect because it binds with the receptors expressed on the surface of immune cells. The effect of caffeine consumption on cardiovascular health has been widely investigated, with conflicting results.
Researchers here investigated 31 lupus patients without traditional cardiovascular risks factors using a seven-day food questionnaire. After a week the investigators took the patents’ blood to measure blood vessels health. They found that patients who consumed caffeine had better vascular health, as measured through endothelial cells, which form the important inner layer of blood vessels.
Study Findings and Future Research
“The present study is an attempt to provide patients with information on the possible role of diet in controlling the disease,” said the paper’s lead author, Fulvia Ceccarelli. “It will be necessary to confirm the results through a longitudinal study, aimed at assessing the real impact of coffee consumption on the disease course.”
Reference:
“Caffeine improves systemic lupus erythematosus endothelial dysfunction by promoting endothelial progenitor cells survival” by Valeria Orefice, Fulvia Ceccarelli, Cristiana Barbati, Giorgia Buoncuore, Carmelo Pirone, Cristiano Alessandri and Fabrizio Conti, 9 October 2024, Rheumatology.
DOI: 10.1093/rheumatology/keae453
COFFEE = GOOD
Six shots of espresso every day. 👍🏻👍🏻
You a fellow paesano? :)
As if I needed another reason to eat more chocolate.
“might”, “may”, “could”
“31 lupus patients without traditional cardiovascular risks factors using a seven-day food questionnaire”
truly worthless “study”:
1. 31 is grossly under-powered
2. totally unknown if lupus population translates to general
population
3. food consumption surveys are well known to be unreliable
Black coffee bkmk
Black, fresh, strong coffee!
Don’t even THINK about squirting some flavoring in my coffee! And that includes sugar and cream.
Thus, this is a good week. Now for another cup of the elixir of youth!
Beer for My horses
Whiskey for my men
Coffee for my heart
Once Had a dog that would drink beer.
If you set down your beer anywhere, she would be on it..............
No fru-fru keurig machine here. We use a percolator ;-)
I never drank it my whole life, and when I was in the USN, they used to get a five gallon tin of coffee for our “Coffee Mess” in our jet mechanic’s shop on the carrier.
I didn’t drink it because I didn’t like the taste and was worried I would get totally addicted like some guys, but...when you pulled that indented circular metal cover off the top of the can...it smelled unbelievable. It was nearly toxically pleasurable, that ground coffee! To me, the taste of the drink never measured up.
All the guys had their own cup up on pegs and they were nasty. They had gunk and grime in them, and to my eye, were evil to look at.
They made me run the Coffee Mess which involved cleaning it every day, stocking everything, and keeping it today. That really grated on me, because I didn’t drink coffee. I argued about it with our Chief, but he made me do it anyway.
So next time I had the duty, when I cleaned up the area, I took down all the cups and cleaned them with the surface cleaner in spray cans we used to clean the outside of the airplanes at sea because there was not enough fresh water to do it.
Boy, were they pissed at me. I thought it was because they tasted the aircraft cleaner (I could have been thrown off the catwalk into the ocean for that) but I had really washed them with soap and water after, so it couldn’t be the taste or smell of the cleaner.
Turns out, they LIKED the crud in their cups. Don’t know why, but they all, to a man, enjoyed a filthy coffee cup! They never held it against me, which I am glad of, because they sure could have.
To this day, I am surprised they didn’t keelhaul me! And on a carrier, that is some serious sh*t!
Fast forward to now, since about the age of 58, I began drinking coffee. One cup a day in the morning. I just could not get going in the morning, and drinking it, to someone who never drank it, was like taking a hit of speed! My productivity would pop!
Heh, NOW it is just a habit for me!
Yes
Coffee good, coffee bad, coffee good, coffee bad, coffee good, coffee bad....
I did that exact thing in the Marines.
Our platoon Sergeant was a 40-something guy who had a coffee cup that was near black inside. I thought it was disgusting. So on morning before he got to work (he was married and lived off base), I cleaned it and made it look brand new.
He was pissed and he knew I did it but there was nothing he could do......................
Your post made me smile! I use a stainless steel old small stovetop percolator. I make two cups and just have one a day, nuke the second day cup. I never scrub it out. I just rinse it with water. Every now and then if hubby is doing any dishes he will scrub it out good and I don’t see it until I go to use it again. I don’t give him hell, but I keep asking him not to, I think the coffee tastes better. Maybe it’s a navy thing, Dad was a WWII navy vet. :)
My mother in law lived with us for 25 years. She would get up early and make a big pot in the percolator. Oh my, that was heavenly.
I use a keurig now because it is easy. But it tastes nothing like a good perc’d cup of joe. I miss that.
Hahahahaha...I too was clueless about this aspect of coffee drinkers...
I was so outraged they made me take a turn at managing the coffee mess when I didn’t drink it.
Even today, at work, I fall into that category I guess-when I am done drinking it (I drink black coffee, no cream or sugar, one cup a day) I just put it away.
Every once in a while, I look inside it, and it looks rasty! I then pour some soda in it, swish it around, drink it, and wipe it out with a paper towel.
The ritual reminds me of being in church (I grew up Catholic) and seeing the priest go through the ceremony of cleaning out the chalice after communion...:)
“Do you smell that? Coffee, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of coffee in the morning. The smell — you know that caffeine smell — the whole kitchen smelled like - victory.”
Love it-those Navy people love their coffee! My dad was a 30 year Navy Vet, and he would drink ten cups of coffee a day. Not exaggerating. And he smoked several packs of Pall Malls a day too, the unfiltered kind!
And my mother was exactly the same. My memory of them both, now gone twenty years, is coming downstairs in the morning, and seeing both of them sitting there, mug of coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other...:)
When I got married, my wife was astonished at how much coffee and cigarettes they went through, and SHE drank a lot of coffee! My mom and dad ALWAYS had a thing of coffee in those pyrex coffee pots hot and ready to go.
Sigh. How I miss them both.
My dad enjoyed telling the apocryphal story, probably told all over the Navy, maybe even to this day, about the Captain of a ship who enjoyed his cup of coffee in the morning when he arrived on the bridge, but every time a sailor brought it up to him from the galley, the cup would only be about two thirds full, the coffee would be dripping down the sides, and the sailor's blouse and dungarees would be stained with it from spillage caused by walking up several ladders to the bridge.
But there was one sailor who always managed to get the cup of coffee up to the bridge without spilling any, at top speed too, and he began to wonder how that sailor managed to do it.
One day he was out on the weather deck on the bridge, and saw the same sailor, cup of coffee in hand, running up the ladders at top speed without spilling a drop. Just before he came up the last one into the bridge, he saw him pause, bend over the cup, and spit a mouthful of coffee back into the mug, before carefully walking up the last ladder!
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