London, March 03: Sipping a strong cup of hot coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up energy, but it could be a lifesaver too, for a new study has revealed that caffeine protects the heart.
An international team has found that drinking coffee regularly could protect drinkers from irregular heart beats or rhythms — and the more cups they drink a day, the less likely they are to suffer from the condition.
For the study, researchers, led by Dr Arthur Klatsky of US pharmaceutical giant Kaiser Permanente, followed 130,054 men and women, aged 18 to 90, and found that those who drank four or more cups of coffee each day had an 18 per cent lower risk of hospitalization for heart rhythm disturbances.
Those who reported drinking one to three cups each day had a seven per cent reduction in risk compared to abstainers.
“While the link didn’t automatically suggest that coffee alone was responsible for the link, it did appear to show coffee did no harm,” Dr Klatsky said.
Dr Klatsky added: “Coffee drinking is related to lower risk of hospitalisation for rhythm problems, but the association does not prove cause and effect, or that coffee has a protective effect.
“However, these data might be reassuring to people who drink moderate amounts of coffee that their habit is not likely to cause a major rhythm disturbance.”
The latest results, presented at the American Heart Association’s Annual Conference in San Francisco, followed a raft of other researches which showed coffee has a protective effect on the heart.
A report from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain showed that drinking three cups of coffee a day could reduce the risk of women dying from heart disease by a quarter.
Another showed that men who drank five or more cups of coffee were 44 per cent less likely to die from the disease. Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day was also shown to reduce the risk of a stroke by almost 20 per cent.
—-PTI