A recent study has raised concerns for coffee lovers with severe high blood pressure.
It turns out that drinking more than two cups of coffee a day might actually double the risk of dying from heart disease for those with really high blood pressure (we’re talking 160/100 mm Hg or more).
This is a bit of a shocker, especially since coffee is a favorite morning boost for many.
Interestingly, the study found that if you stick to just one cup of coffee a day, or if you’re a green tea drinker, you don’t face the same increased risk, regardless of your blood pressure.
Both coffee and green tea contain caffeine, but their impacts seem to be different. For a bit of context, the FDA says an 8-ounce cup of green or black tea has about 30-50 milligrams of caffeine, while a similar cup of coffee packs 80 to 100 milligrams.
Looking at previous research, a daily cup of coffee seemed to have some benefits. It was found to help heart attack survivors by lowering their risk of death and might even prevent heart attacks or strokes in healthy folks.
Regular coffee drinking has also been linked to a lower risk of chronic illnesses, better appetite control, and even a reduced risk of depression or a boost in alertness.
However, it’s not all good news. Drinking a lot of coffee can increase blood pressure, lead to anxiety, cause heart palpitations, and mess with your sleep.
In this study, the researchers categorized blood pressure into five groups, ranging from optimal and normal to grade 3 hypertension, which is really high blood pressure. They considered grades 2 and 3 as severe hypertension.
The study involved more than 18,000 participants, both men and women, aged 40 to 79, over nearly 19 years. During this time, 842 cardiovascular-related deaths were reported.
The alarming find was that those with severe hypertension (160/100 mm Hg or higher) who drank two or more cups of coffee a day had twice the risk of dying from heart disease compared to non-coffee drinkers.
But drinking just one cup of coffee a day didn’t seem to increase heart disease death risk in any blood pressure category. Similarly, green tea didn’t raise the risk at all.
These findings suggest that people with really high blood pressure might need to think twice about their coffee consumption.
Because their bodies are more sensitive to caffeine, the negative effects might outweigh the positive ones, increasing the risk of death.
One possible reason why green tea is safer could be due to polyphenols. These are healthy nutrients found in plants that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
This significant research was conducted by Hiroyasu Iso and colleagues and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
If you care about coffee, please read studies that drinking coffee this way can help prevent stroke, heart disease, and drink coffee after breakfast, not before, for better blood sugar control.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about natural supplement that could relieve anxiety, and results showing this common food oil in the U.S. can change genes in the brain.
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