According to new research from the University of Bologna and the Sant’Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital, self-reported regular coffee drinkers have significantly lower peripheral and aortic blood pressure than non-coffee drinkers; however, self-reported coffee consumption seems to not be significantly associated with arterial stiffness parameters.
Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world. In 2020 and 2021, around 166.63 million 60-kg bags of coffee were consumed worldwide.
A growing number of epidemiological studies advocates for its consumption for the prevention of cardiovascular disease, stroke and mortality.
A recent large meta-analysis of observational longitudinal studies including more than 12 million participants and registering 36,352 cardiovascular disease cases concluded that there was a non-linear protective association between long-term coffee consumption and cardiovascular events.
In detail, compared to that with no coffee consumption, the relative risk of cardiovascular disease is 0.85 for a median 3.5 cups consumed per day. Similar data have been recently confirmed in the U.S. population.
However, it is not fully clear if this positive effect of coffee is supported or attenuated by coffee consumption.
In fact, the effect of coffee on arterial blood pressure is still debated, mainly because of the known acute impact of caffeine on blood pressure.
In particular, caffeine is well-known to increase blood pressure by interacting with adenosine receptors in arterial vessels and acutely augmenting catecholamine plasma levels.
However, this effect is counteracted by antioxidant components in coffee, which cause nitric oxide-mediated vasodilation and downregulate reactive oxygen species levels, finally playing an important role in the regulation of vascular tone.
“Caffeine is only one of the several coffee components and certainly not the only one with an active role,” said University of Bologna’s Professor Arrigo…
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