Can caffeine restore heart health?

Now a small new study in Japan suggests that caffeine in a cup of coffee can make your microvessels work better and relieve intense stress on the heart.

Compared with decaffeinated coffee, a cup of caffeinated coffee increases blood flow through capillaries to fingertips by 30%, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association. Dr. Masato Tsutsui, from the Department of Pharmacy at Okinawa Ryukyu University, said that these microvessels regulate the ease and difficulty of blood flow through the circulatory system and body tissues.

The study involved 27 irregular coffee drinkers between the ages of 22 and 30, who were asked to drink 5 ounces of non-caffeinated or caffeinated coffee, and then use a non-invasive laser to measure interfinger blood flow. Two days later, neither the researchers nor the participants knew when they would drink caffeinated coffee after drinking a second cup of decaffeinated or caffeinated coffee.

The study found that drinking caffeinated coffee improved microvascular blood flow by nearly 1/3, and the effect persisted after 75 minutes. Although drinking caffeinated coffee slightly increased blood pressure, the heart rate did not change in both groups.

The increase in blood flow may be due to an improvement in vascular lining function, which the researchers linked to future heart failure, stroke and heart disease, Dr. Tsutsui said. Dr. Gordon Tomaselli of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said that previous studies have shown that coffee drinking is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, heart failure and stroke. Researchers have found that high doses of caffeine can improve the function of larger arteries, but caffeine also increases blood pressure, which scientists do not yet know why high blood pressure can damage arteries.

Dr. Tomaselli, a former president of the American Heart Association, said it was an interesting finding that could help us understand why drinking coffee is beneficial. But how much coffee does it take to be effective? Dr Tsutsui points out that research by the US Institutes of Health shows that drinking more than six cups of coffee a day reduces the risk of premature death by 10 per cent for men and 15 per cent for women.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (New England Journal of Medicine), found that the more coffee you drink each day, the lower the risk. But because there are not many participants in this study, it is not possible to determine whether coffee is really good for the heart.