THE ESSENTIAL
- The European Food Safety Agency recommends consuming no more than 400 mg of caffeine per day, or more than four espressos during the day. In pregnant or breastfeeding women, it should not exceed 200 mg.
- Below this dose, coffee consumption is associated with increased life expectancy and a reduced risk of heart disease.
This is good news for coffee lovers. A new studypublished in European Journal of Preventive Cardiologyconfirms previous research that had already touted the benefits of this drink on life expectancy et cardiovascular health. Australian researchers have found that drinking two to three cups of coffee a day reduces the risk of heart disease and the risk of death from all causes. And this doesn’t matter what your preferences are: the results apply to a wide range of varieties: instant, ground or decaffeinated coffee.
Moderate coffee consumption is good for your health
“The results suggest that light to moderate consumption of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle”said study author Professor Peter Kistler of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute in a communiqué.
According to the study authors, there had not been enough research on the impact of various coffee-brewing methods on heart health and longevity. They therefore followed a very large group of nearly 450,000 adults aged 40 to 69 using data from the UK Biobank. All these people had no history of cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. Each answered a questionnaire asking them how many cups of coffee they drank per day and whether it was instant, ground (including cappuccino or filtered coffee) or decaffeinated coffee. The researchers grouped the participants into six categories: those who drank less than one cup a day, one cup, two to three cups, four to five cups, more than five cups of coffee and those who never drank any.
The most popular type of coffee was instant coffee (44.1%), followed by ground coffee (18.4%) and decaffeinated (15.2%). The 100,510 people (22.4%) who did not drink coffee served as a control group. The team then compared these coffee drinking habits to the incidents of arrhythmia, cardiovascular disease and death that the participants experienced during the study’s follow-up duration (12.5 years). The authors note that they also adjusted their results for age, gender, ethnicity, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, smoking habits and the consumption of tea or alcohol.
Ground coffee is the most effective on risk reduction
The study finds that two to three cups of any variety of coffee produce the best results for heart health and improved longevity. Compared to non-consumers, coffee drinkers had a 14%, 27%, and 11% lower risk of death from all causes following consuming decaffeinated, ground, and instant coffee, respectively.
The risk of cardiovascular disease also fell by 6%, 20% and 9% in participants drinking two to three cups of decaffeinated coffee, ground coffee and instant coffee, respectively.
On the other hand, decaffeinated coffee drinkers saw no benefit in terms of their risk of arrhythmia (an irregular heartbeat). The study also found that four to five cups of ground coffee a day reduced the risk of arrhythmia by 17%, while two to three cups of instant coffee reduced the risk by 12%.
“Caffeine is the best-known constituent of coffee, but the drink contains more than 100 biologically active compounds. It is likely that non-caffeinated compounds are responsible for the observed positive relationships between coffee consumption, cardiovascular disease and survival”adds Professor Kistler. “Our results indicate that consuming small amounts of coffee of all types should not be discouraged, but can be enjoyed as a heart-healthy behavior”he concludes.