Posted on 10/21/2025 8:47:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is caffeine good or bad for your heart?
There’s no doubt that caffeine can raise your blood pressure and heart rate.
But consuming moderate amounts of caffeine daily also has been linked to supple arteries and reduced risk of heart failure and atrial fibrillation.
Now there’s more good heart health news for those of us who love our coffee, tea and cocoa…
Vascular disease, damage of blood vessels and their resulting consequences — heart attack and stroke — are among the leading causes of death in the general population.
These risks are even higher in patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. This is due to the diseases themselves and some of their treatments, particularly derivatives of cortisone.
Until now, doctors have recommended avoiding risk factors to protect against vascular dysfunction. These recommendations included:
However, researchers from Sapienza University of Rome found suggestions that caffeine actively helps endothelial progenitor cells. This group of cells helps regenerate the lining of blood vessels and is involved in vascular growth.
A diet rich in vitamins D (found in oily fish and eggs) and A (found in many fruits), as well as polyunsaturated fatty acids, and low in sodium, appears to play a role in reducing the inflammatory burden. Scientists have been curious if caffeine belongs on that list.
Caffeine exerts its anti-inflammatory effect by binding with receptors expressed on the surface of immune cells.
The researchers studied 31 lupus patients who did not have traditional cardiovascular risk factors using a seven-day food questionnaire. After a week, the investigators took the patients’ blood to measure the health of their blood vessels. They found that patients who consumed caffeine had better vascular health, as measured by endothelial cells, which form the innermost layer of blood vessels.
“The present study is an attempt to provide patients with information on the possible role of diet in controlling the disease,” says Fulvia Ceccarelli, the paper’s lead author. “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.”
Keep in mind that most health agencies recommend you consume no more than 400 mg of caffeine a day. Given that a typical eight-ounce cup of coffee contains 95 mg of caffeine, that means limiting your intake to roughly four of these cups.
However, the smallest coffee size at many coffee shops is 12 ounces, and the largest can exceed 20 ounces. If you tend to get your coffee fix there or use an oversized mug at home, you need to bear the size in mind.
Also, if you’re a fan of espresso drinks, bear in mind that they contain a compound that can negate coffee’s heart benefits and are often loaded with added fat and sugar. You may want to stick with brewed coffee to reap the full benefits of caffeine.
If you want to moderate your caffeine consumption, a good way to do so is to replace a cup or two of coffee with black or green tea. A cup of black tea contains approximately 47 mg of caffeine, while a cup of green tea contains around 33 mg.
One thing I am not clear on is whether it is OK to drink coffee before giving blood, so on days when I donate I generally avoid drinking any coffee beforehand...but would like to do so if I was sure that it would not cause any problems (especially for the blood recipients).
Same here except I am 80! I admit my consumption is much lower today than when I was half my age. But I need my 1-2 cps each morning or the day seems to lag.
Gee, maybe the old folks at the farm knew more than I realized when they used to say: “All things in moderation.”
“More important is eliminating added sugars “
^^^THIS. I love sugary stuff but it’s inflammatory as hell. After hundreds of thousands of years as hunter-gatherers eating meats, berries and nuts, our bodies just can’t “mainline” massive quantities of purified glucose/fructose.
As one raised and addicted to sugar for way WAY too long, years and years, and now off it, I’ve more recently found a sweetener that looks quite promising.
Allulose is a natural “rare” sugar, that is 2/3 to 3/4 as sweet as table sugar. It is a powder with texture like table sugar, and can be used like it in making food stuffs.
My favorite so far, Cocoa Butter Bark: tiny amount of carbs: 8 oz of cocoa butter, half-cup unsweetened cocoa, half-cup of allulose, bit o’ vanilla, some pecans. The small amount of carbs is from the pecans. I usually use 40 to 80g of pecans. 3g net carbs, 6g fiber. This is mostly fat, which is great keto, and not for anybody still hanging onto the Big Food lie that Fat will kill us.
Interesting!
“Personally, I find staying away from salt a straw-man for lower BP and heart health. More important is eliminating added sugars and keeping daily carb intake low.”
People who actually studied salt found a classic “U-curve” in which the lowest death rates were at TWICE the level recommended by the ‘experts’ and going twice-again in level had only a minor effect on death rates. So, too much salt is simply one of many medical myths that won’t go away.
For carbs (including sugars), some were marginally healthy for our grandparents, now NONE are healthy thanks to all the modifications, so you’re on the right track there, look at them as a slow-acting poison, because they are.
Woo hoo! I am already at four cups a day. I should live forever.
“ A cup a day seems to work for me.”
I do a cup of regular and a cup of half-caff in the morning and a decaf green tea in the afternoon.
Wink, wink, so am I (and other inquiring minds) to believe that he United States Marine Corps, kept your undivided attention, again WINK, WINK, I find that very suspect, with warm loving R. Lee Ermey types "Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the film Full Metal Jacket (1987.)"
If you replace just one cup of coffee with green tea you can reduce the remaining joy you have in life by up to 48%.
😁........................
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