‘3 cups of coffee a day may lower risk of clogged arteries’
Coffee lovers who drink more than three cups a day may lower their risk for clogged arteries beside staying alert, a new study has revealed.
The researcher, Andreia Miranda, said her research team found that habitual consumption of more than three cups of coffee decreased odds of coronary calcification for people who had never smoked.
The study could not prove cause and effect, of course, and coffee did not seem to help the arteries of smokers, the researcher found.
The scientists surveyed more than 4,400 residents of Sao Paulo on their coffeedrinking habit and correlated them with Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) readings. CAC scans look for signs of calcium buildup in the heart’s arteries, which can ultimately trigger a heart attack.
Miranda said smoking’s unhealthy effect might “overwhelm the influence of coffee intake on early cardiovascular disease.”
Miranda, a post-doctoral candidate at the University of Sao Paulo’s School of Public Health, pointed out that heart disease was the number one cause of deaths worldwide that were not attributable to infectious diseases.
There are estimates that nearly 18 million people died from a cardiovascular illness in 2015. That figure is projected to approach 24 million by 2030.
Miranda and her colleagues previously found that drinking coffee was moderately beneficial in keeping other heart disease risk factors in check, including blood pressure and homocysteine levels, an amino acid linked to red meat consumption.
Dietary surveys gauged daily, weekly and monthly coffee intake habits, while CAC scans assessed calcium buildup in arteries.
But it remains to be seen whether drinking four or five cups a day will confer even more benefit, Miranda said.
She said they had not tested the limit of cups of coffee for which there was a protection, while she cautioned that other studies had already shown that excessive consumption of this beverage might not bring health benefits.
Dr. Gregg Fonarow, Co-Director of the University of Califonia, Los Angeles (UCLA), said, “Coffee consumption has been associated with improvement of insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, LDL (bad cholesterol) oxidation, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and a lower risk of diabetes.”
He, however, added that “the mechanisms behind a potential beneficial relationship between coffee consumption and cardiovascular events have not been fully established.”