Drinking coffee does not result in extra heartbeats
University of California-San Francisco researchers debunk the belief that coffee consumption causes extra heartbeats.
The study, which measured the chronic consumption of caffeinated products over a 12-month period, rather than acute consumption, appears in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association. It is the largest to date to have evaluated dietary patterns in relation to extra heartbeats.
“Clinical recommendations advising against the regular consumption of caffeinated products to prevent disturbances of the heart’s cardiac rhythm should be reconsidered, as we may unnecessarily be discouraging consumption of items like chocolate, coffee and tea that might actually have cardiovascular benefits,” said senior author Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, a UCSF Health cardiologist and director of clinical research in the UCSF Division of Cardiology.
In their study, Marcus and his colleagues analyzed 1,388 randomly selected participants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Cardiovascular Health Study database of nearly 6,000 patients, excluding those with persistent extra heartbeats. They were given a baseline food frequency assessment and 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiography monitoring. Frequencies of habitual coffee, tea and chocolate consumption were determined through a survey.
Of the total participants, 840 (61 percent) consumed more than one caffeinated product like coffee, tea, or chocolate daily. Researchers found that consumption of these products was not associated with extra heartbeats.
“This was the first community-based sample to look at the impact of caffeine on extra heartbeats, as previous studies looked at people with known arrhythmias,” said lead author Shalini Dixit, BA, a fourth-year medical student at UCSF. “Whether acute consumption of these caffeinated products affects extra heartbeats requires further study.”
