Drinking coffee helps reduce inflammation and improve heart health

A new study suggests that caffeine in a cup of coffee in the morning may not only keep you awake, it may also help suppress inflammation associated with heart disease risk factors.

   researchers have found that an inflammatory response occurs in some older people, but not in others. When it is highly activated, people often have high blood pressure and severe arteriosclerosis.

   but in laboratory experiments, there is already evidence that caffeine blocks this inflammatory process.

  , however, no one has ever said that a cup of coffee in the morning is a panacea for aging.

However, the findings may help explain why past studies have linked higher caffeine intake to longer life expectancy, said David Furman, a researcher at    Stanford University School of Medicine.

   according to Furman, the human body "probably has hundreds of ways" to promote chronic inflammation and a variety of diseases.

"We identified one of them,"    said.

Substances other than caffeine may also affect this inflammatory process,    Furman added. He points out that a good example is omega-3 fatty acids (nutrients often found in fatty fish), which can reduce inflammation.

Gabrielle Fredman, an assistant professor at    Albany School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, cautioned against paying too much attention to the caffeine findings.

What is "really important", says    Fredman, is that the study points to some molecular "targets" for developing new treatments against chronic inflammation.

   scientists have long believed that persistent low levels of inflammation can lead to most age-related chronic diseases, including heart disease, arthritis, dementia and many cancers.

   Fredman noted that existing anti-inflammatory drugs have side effects, including immune system suppression, and are therefore not suitable for use in the elderly.

So, she says, scientists are trying to develop treatments that target specific targets in this chronic inflammatory process.

It is not clear whether    caffeine is one of these treatments.

"this study suggests that moderate caffeine intake is sufficient to inhibit some of these inflammation,"    Fredman said.

  , however, Fredman stressed that it is still too early to clarify what all this means. "they didn't conduct a clinical trial to test caffeine," she said. Specifically, more research is needed. "

The    study involved more than 100 adults. Over the past 10 years, these participants participated in the study by providing blood samples and their medical history.

   Furman and her team compared blood samples from younger and older groups to see which genes were more activated in older people.

   they focus on two gene clusters in which all members seem to work together. These two gene clusters are involved in the production of a powerful inflammatory protein, IL-1 β.

   results show that these elderly people can be divided into two groups: the elderly group with high activation of one or two gene clusters (high activation group) and the elderly group with low activation of two gene clusters (low activation group).

   9 of the 12 adults in the high activation group had high blood pressure, while only 1 of the 11 adults in the low activation group had hypertension. Adults in the high activation group were also more likely to develop arteriosclerosis.

The most important thing about    is that their blood test results are different: older adults have higher levels of IL-1 β in the high activation group. They also have higher levels of nucleic acid metabolites.

  , so where does caffeine play a role?

Adults in the low    activation group drank more caffeinated drinks. This allows researchers to conduct more in-depth research in the laboratory.

   first, the researchers incubated immune system cells with nucleic acid metabolites common in the highly activated group. They found that these metabolites increased the activity of one of the inflammatory gene clusters. This in turn causes these immune cells to produce more IL-1 beta.

When    is injected into mice, these metabolites trigger widespread inflammation and high blood pressure.

Next, the researchers incubated immune cells with nucleic acid metabolites and caffeine. They found that caffeine seemed to block these metabolites that trigger inflammation.

   according to Fredman, these results provide some targets for the development of anti-inflammatory therapy.

Previous studies have confirmed that IL-1 beta tends to have high levels in patients with cardiovascular disease,    Fredman said. Currently, a clinical trial is testing the efficacy of an IL-1 β inhibitor in patients with heart disease.

More broadly, the new study helps solve a fundamental problem, says    Fredman.

"it helps us understand why some people age more easily than others,"    said. Why do some people have a stroke at the age of 60 while others live to be 100 and never have a stroke? "

What is still unclear about    is why some people have higher levels of inflammatory gene cluster activation while others do not.

  , however, says Fredman, this is likely to be partly hereditary. In this study, there is evidence that people in the low-activation group are eight times more likely to have at least one close relative over the age of 90 than those in the high-activation group, she added.