Or so we thought.
Until new research done by researchers at the Queen Mary University of London and partially funded by British Heart Foundation, suggests that caffeine is not too bad for our heart up to a limit. Up to 25 cups of coffee per day!
The study was conducted on over 8412 people. They were separated into 3 groups. One of the groups drank less than a cup each day. Another drank about 2-3 cups each day. Finally, there was the third group who drank 4-25 cups each day. People who drank over 25 cups were not considered in this study. The participants were put under MRI scans and infrared pulse wave tests to examine cardiovascular health, that is, the stiffness of their arteries.
Studies that were done before this one had concluded that drinking excess of coffee can cause the arteries to stiffen, increasing the risk of heart attacks. However, in this study, after canceling out a few factors like consumption of alcohol, smoking, diet, weight, height, ethnicity, blood pressure, etc, the researchers did not find any significant impact on the cardiovascular health of the participants. The findings were presented at the British Cardiovascular Society Conference.
Kenneth Fung, the person who led the entire analysis, said that the findings show that there was no change in the heart health of someone drinking 1 cup of coffee and someone drinking 3 cups of it. It means that coffee can turn out to be a part of our healthy lifestyle.
However, it does not claim that coffee in itself is completely healthy. As Metin Avrikan, who is working as an associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, points out, there are many conflicting studies present in the world of medical literature. However, it does shed light on a new avenue of research and lowers the harm associated with coffee.
But isn’t 25 cups too much? Of course, it does not stiffen your arteries but researchers have still not conducted any study on the health of those who have a high consumption rate of coffee. So, we’d have to wait and watch.