Daily coffee intake reduces risk of heart failure

Drinking coffee daily may do the heart enough good that it can reduce the risk of heart failure.

Coffee lovers may find the results of a recent report published in the American Heart Association's (AHA) journal Circulation: Heart Failure to be comforting. It revealed that those who drink one or more cups of caffeinated coffee daily reduce their risk of heart failure.

According to the news release, dietary information that the researchers got from three large heart disease studies showed that drinking coffee daily has massive benefits for the heart health.

The researchers used machine learning via the AHA's Precision Medicine Platform in assessing data from the three large studies. These include the Framingham Heart Study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, and the Cardiovascular Health Study. Collectively, the studies, all of which had a follow-up of 10 years, gave the researchers data on more than 21,000 adults in the U.S.

The researchers analysed the consumption of the participants, categorising them in terms of the number of coffee cups they consume per day. The participants self-reported their consumption and there was no standard unit of measure that was used.

In the three studies, the researchers found that people who drink one or more cups of caffeinated coffee showed a decrease in long-term heart failure risk. The researchers found that decaffeinated coffee did not offer the same benefits as caffeinated coffee.

"The association between caffeine and heart failure risk reduction was surprising. Coffee and caffeine are often considered by the general population to be 'bad' for the heart because people associate them with palpitations, high blood pressure, etc. The consistent relationship between increasing caffeine consumption and decreasing heart failure risk turns that assumption on its head," said David P. Kao, senior author of the study and the medical director at the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, Colorado.

Kao said though that they still do not have enough clear evidence that would lead to a recommendation of increasing coffee consumption to decrease heart failure.