From foodconsumer.org
Caffeine may prevent heart disease death in elderly
By Ben Wasserman - foodconsumer.org
Feb 23, 2007 - 2:22:10 PM
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Drinking caffeinated beverages often may provide protection
against heart disease mortality in the elderly people aged 65 or older, according
to researchers at
SUNY
Downstate
Medical
Center and
Brooklyn
College.
Looking into data from the first federal National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-up Study, the researchers
found that those who drank caffeinated beverages often experienced lower risk
of coronary vascular disease and heart mortality than those who did not consume
as much of such beverages.
John Kassotis, MD, associate professor of medicine at SUNY
Downstate, explained "The protection against death from heart disease in
the elderly afforded by caffeine is likely due to caffeine's enhancement of
blood pressure."
The seemingly protective effect also was found
dose-responsive: the higher the caffeine intake, the stronger the protection
against heart problems.
But the correlation was only found in participants who were
not severely hypertensive. No protective effect was found among the patients
who were younger than 65.
In addition,
drinking caffeinated beverages was not associated with reduced risk of cerebrovascular
disease mortality or death from stroke regardless of age.
The link between the heart mortality and caffeine intake
does not seem to be a causal relationship, meaning that drinking caffeinated beverages
does not necessarily provide any real protection although such a possibility can
not be excluded either.
The protection
may or may not be there, which need to be confirmed in future studies, a scientist
affiliated with foodconsumer.org comments.
The findings were published in the Feb 2007 issue of The
American Journal of Nutrition.
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