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Doctors have long warned heart patients to avoid caffeine, but groundbreaking research now suggests your morning coffee might actually protect your heart, not harm it.
If you’ve ever been told to skip your morning coffee because of heart problems, you might want to hear this. New research is completely flipping the script on what we thought we knew about caffeine and heart health.
For years, doctors have been telling people with irregular heartbeats to stay away from coffee. The logic seemed simple enough: caffeine speeds things up, so it must be bad for your heart, right? Well, it turns out we may have had it backwards all along.
A brand new study just published in JAMA found something pretty surprising: drinking just one cup of coffee a day could actually cut your risk of heart rhythm problems by nearly 40%. Yes, you read that right. Coffee might actually be good for your heart.
What Did the Study Find?
Scientists at UC San Francisco wanted to settle this debate once and for all, so they ran what’s called the DECAF trial (clever name, right?). They got 200 people who all had atrial fibrillation (that’s when your heart beats irregularly and too fast) and split them into two groups.
One group kept drinking their usual cup of coffee every day. The other group had to quit caffeine completely for six months. That probably wasn’t fun for them.
Here’s what happened: the coffee drinkers had way fewer heart problems. Only 47% of them had their irregular heartbeat come back, compared to 64% of the people who gave up coffee. That’s a huge difference.
So Why Does Coffee Help?
Dr. Gregory Marcus, who led the study, says there are actually several reasons coffee might be protecting our hearts. First off, coffee makes you pee more (we’ve all noticed that), which can help lower your blood pressure. Lower blood pressure means less stress on your heart.
But there’s more. People who drank coffee in the study also moved around more, about 1,000 extra steps every day. We all know exercise is good for your heart, so that extra movement adds up.
Plus, coffee is packed with stuff that fights inflammation in your body. Since inflammation can trigger heart problems, this is another win for your daily brew.
What Should You Do?
If you’re dealing with heart rhythm issues and you love your morning coffee, this is pretty good news. Dr. Marcus says people with atrial fibrillation who enjoy coffee can keep drinking it without worry.
But (and this is important) we’re talking about regular coffee here. Not those giant energy drinks or caffeine pills. Just your normal cup of joe.
Around 37 million people worldwide deal with irregular heartbeats, and that number keeps growing. So finding out that something as simple as your daily coffee might actually help? That’s worth celebrating with a fresh cup.
