Can Coffee Increase Your Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke? New Study Tends to Think So!
Ronald Grisanti D.C.,D.A.B.C.O., M.S.
A one year study from the Department of Cardiology of Athens Medical School suggests caffeine could exert a detrimental effect on aortic stiffness increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Aortic stiffness is an important prognosticator of cardiovascular disease risk. In a cross-sectional study of 228 healthy subjects - 141 men in their mid 40s and 87 women of the same age – the researchers tracked aortic stiffness coffee consumption over a one year period. Aortic stiffness was evaluated with carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV). This is a classical measurement of aortic stiffness. Coffee consumption was categorized as none, low (<200 mL/d), moderate (200-450 mL/d), or high (>450 mL/d). A total of 14 per cent of subjects consumed no coffee. 32 per cent were categorized as low, 36 per cent as moderate and 18 per cent as high coffee consumers. Compared with the nonconsumption group, PWV was on average 13% higher “We have shown that caffeine acutely increases aortic stiffness and wave reflections,” report the researchers in the June 2005 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, (Vol. 81, No. 6, 1307-1312). Stay Informed and Subscribe to Dr. Grisanti's Free Health Tip of the Week
Reference
Charalambos Vlachopoulos, Demosthenes Panagiotakos, Nikolaos Ioakeimidis, Ioanna Dima, and Christodoulos Stefanadis Chronic coffee consumption has a detrimental effect on aortic stiffness and wave reflections Am J Clin Nutr 2005 81: 1307-1312 Vlachopoulos C, Kosmopoulou F, Panagiotakos D, Ioakeimidis N, Alexopoulos N, Pitsavos C, Stefanadis C. Smoking and caffeine have a synergistic detrimental effect on aortic stiffness and wave reflections.J Am Coll Cardiol. 2004 Nov 2;44(9):1911-7. Vlachopoulos C, Hirata K, O'Rourke MF.Effect of caffeine on aortic elastic properties and wave reflection. J Hypertens. 2003 Mar;21(3):563-70.
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