From The Metro:
Just a single cup of the caffeine-rich coffee can have a potentially damaging effect on the heart, researchers say. Blood flow to the heart was reduced by 22 per cent within an hour of a cup being drunk, they discovered. But decaffeinated coffee did not have the same effect. Blood pressure also rose significantly after a normal espresso but not with decaf.
Italian researchers used 20 people to test the effects of caffeine-rich and decaffeinated drinks. It is not clear whether the short-term effects on the heart are offset by the fact that coffee also contains disease-fighting antioxidants, they wrote in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
It was also possible the damage may be confined to the one in two people who are more sensitive to caffeine's effects. A single espresso contains about 107mg of caffeine, compared with 75mg in a cup of instant. A cup of filter has 120mg. Britain's coffee industry is worth about £1billion a year. Experts advise to drink no more than five cups a day.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Health Scare Story Du Jour
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9 comments:
20 people eh? A real broad statistical population to get a genuine result from then?. Not just some lecturer saying to his class take your heart rates, go for a cup of coffee, be back here before the end of the tutorial & I will write it up as "research" & email a press release to the papers?
Is it my imagination or do I remember that a cup of tea can have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee?
And it's even worse if you put salt in it. OTOH http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2010/02/make-mine-double.html
Of course, the stress and excitement of being part of the trail had nothing at all to do with the heart effects. And it was of course a double blind trial with the drinkers who got espresso unable to tell the difference from the decaff.
Not.
I have just worked out that I drink about 8 mugs of coffee per day. Mmm...
Balzac drank fifty cups of coffee a day and recommended a quick fix of grounds ingested without any water.I have always thought I'd swear off it if I got to that state.
Hid brilliantly written account of his coffee addiction is on the Net Google: Balzac The Pleasures and pains of coffee New Partisan.
Well, you can have some serious effects of espresso, as that girl who drank 7 double espressos and ended up in hospital found.
That said, 7 double espressos is a Darwin Award winning level of consumption. We really don't want to worry about idiots like that.
I smoke, I drink, I eat plenty of salt, I pay no heed to cholesterol levels, and I also drink espressos all day along with caffeinated fizzy drinks laden with sugar.
I haven't visited a doctor in decades. That's probably just as well. It's probably illegal for me to be alive so the doctor would have to put me to sleep for the good of the statistics.
Leg-Iron.
You've missed out the single malts.
Wondered about my heart problems.
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