Posted on 04/25/2006 10:00:47 AM PDT by presidio9
Go ahead and have that second cup of coffee -- or third, or fourth. A study published on Monday shows heavy, long-term coffee drinking does not raise the risk of heart disease for most people.
The study, which followed 128,000 men and women for as long as 20 years, showed that drinking filtered coffee -- not espresso or French-style brews -- did not raise the risk of heart disease.
Heavy coffee drinkers did tend to smoke and drink alcohol more often and those two factors clearly do raise heart risk, the researchers report in the journal Circulation.
"We believe this study clearly shows there is no association between filtered coffee consumption and coronary heart disease," said Esther Lopez-Garcia, an instructor in the School of Medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, who worked on the study.
"This lack of effect is good news, because coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world."
Researchers also found no link between heart disease and how much caffeine, tea or decaffeinated coffee people drank.
But this does not mean that everyone can overload on coffee with impunity, said Rob van Dam of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
"We can't exclude the association between coffee consumption and the risk of (heart disease) in small groups of people," Van Dam said in a statement.
In March, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people with a "slow" version of a particular liver enzyme gene had a higher risk of heart disease if they drank more coffee, compared to those with a fast-metabolizing version. Liver enzymes metabolize coffee and many other compounds.
And several studies have shown a link with heart disease and copious drinking of French press coffee, made using a mesh filter instead of a paper drip filter, or perked coffee.
The Harvard and Madrid teams used data from two ongoing studies -- the all-male Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which began in 1986, and the all-female Nurses' Health Study, which started in 1976.
Volunteers in both studies fill out periodic questionnaires about their diet, exercise and other health habits and undergo regular physical exams.
The researchers found more than half the women and 30 percent of men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day were also more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and use aspirin, and were less likely to drink tea, exercise or take vitamin supplements.
But once these factors were accounted for, there was no difference in heart attack risks between the very light and heavy coffee drinkers.
A study published last November found no link between coffee drinking and high blood pressure, but an apparent association with drinking caffeinated sodas.
Two cups a day, and I'm good to go. I've got employees who drink ONLY Coke or Pepsi, all morning, afternoon and evening. Yuk! Must be that *caffeine buzz* or something. Evil, evil stuff.
ALLRIGHT !
Coffee won't kill you...
Red wine is good for you ...
Shades of Woody Allen's "Sleeper"
Thanks. The anti coffee industry should be dropped kicked daily until they slither away forever.
These smug little food nazis were among the first in America to gain fame and probably a lot of money with their lies about coffee going back to the 1960's.
Good news - I'm good for a quart of coffee before 6:30 every morning.
ROFLMAO - where did you get that picture of me?
I have decided to not care if something is good or bad for me. If some study comes out saying it is bad, I will only have to wait a few weeks and a different study will say it is fine. Either way, I don't get a prize for returning my body in good shape.
Probably a lot of variables involved but I think the study showed how coffee drinkers tended to stay out of the loony bin.
I try to avoid Peet's Coffee.
That stuff is ROCKET FUEL.
MORE BLACK COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
My favorite, but in small quantities, once a day.
..of that subgroup, I've narrowed it down to Italian roast using triple filtered water in a Braun (higher brew temp. 200F, extracts more flavor components).
My brother told me about a cartoon he saw a few days ago where a guy said,
"My mission in life is to transport large quatities of coffee from the coffee maker to the urinal."
This study appears to deal with coronary disease as artery blockage - but not the aspect of arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat) which may result, if severe, in instant death.
If you experience the latter, you don't go back and write a rebuttal to the researcher(s). Moderation remains the guide for the long haul.
The newest models in general health are pointing in a different direction.
Many of the diseases that plague folks are now thought to be caused by constant low-level inflammation. Cholesterol isn't the problem, it's the fix. And arthritis, even diabetes and insulin resistance are starting to be seen as almost autoimmune diseases.
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