Coffee and Heart Disease

The May issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported on a study of 27,312 post menopausal women age 55-69 years. They were part of the Iowa Health Study. They were asked their dietary habits including their coffee consumption. They were followed up for 15 years, resulting in 410, 235 person-years followup years. During this period, there were 4265 deaths. The primary endpoints was disease specific deaths. It was found that women who drank 1-3 cups of coffee a day had the lowest CVS mortality and those who drank no coffee has the highest mortality. An inverse relationship was seen between coffee drinking and non-CVS, inflammatory mortality in this group of post-menopausal women, meaning that those who drank more, had the lowest non-cardiovascular inflammatory disase mortality. One of the possible reason for this observation could be the anti-oxidant effects of caffiene, which may lessen CVS disease instability and also act as an anti-inflammatory agent. Interesting. Ladies, although alcohol may not help your much, but surely coffee (which is cheaper) can.