Four Cups of Coffee Reduced Hospital Stays for Uneven HeartbeatBy David Olmos
March 2 (
Bloomberg) -- While a shot of espresso may give people the sensation their hearts are racing, drinking more coffee reduced the likelihood that patients would be hospitalized for irregular heartbeats, researchers found.
A study of 130,054 adults found that people who drank four cups or more of coffee daily had an 18 percent lower risk of being hospitalized for irregular heartbeats and other heart- rhythm conditions than noncoffee drinkers, researchers at Kaiser Permanente, an Oakland, California-based health system, said today. The risk of hospitalization was 7 percent lower for people who drank one to three cups of coffee daily, the researchers said.
Cardiac rhythm disorders are problems in the heart’s electrical systems that cause it to beat too fast, too slow or irregularly. Atrial fibrillation, a rapid, irregular heart beat that is the most common of these conditions, will affect an estimated 2.7 million Americans in 2010, according to the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“People who are moderate coffee drinkers can be reassured that they are not doing harm because of their coffee drinking,” said Arthur Klatsky, the study’s lead investigator and a cardiologist at Kaiser’s Division of Research.
The study is scheduled March 5 for presentation at an American Heart Association conference on cardiovascular disease in San Francisco. ..........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=ab.PQelsIXRY