Moderate coffee intake good for the heart

Drinking coffee in moderation may reduce the risk of heart failure incidence for adults, as reported in a study.

For the study, researchers used data from the UK Biobank and chose a longitudinal design to examine the association between time-varying coffee consumption and incident heart failure. Marginal structural models (MSM) were used to control for potential time-varying confounders and account for bias caused by loss of follow-up. Finally, a restricted cubic spline was applied to test and describe the nonlinear relationship between coffee consumption and HF risk.

The analysis included 497,503 adults (mean age 56.5 years, 54.6 percent women) who were free from heart failure at baseline. The median follow-up time for the heart failure incidence was 11.9 years.

At baseline, the majority (70.5 percent) of participants reported drinking at least 1 cup of coffee per day and 2.7 percent of participants had incident heart failure. Multivariable regression models showed a significant, nonlinear J-shaped association between coffee consumption and heart failure risk (p<0.001).

The risk of incident heart failure was lower among participants who consumed 1–2 cups (hazard ratio [HR], 0.878, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.838–0.920) or 3–4 cups (HR, 0.920, 95 percent CI, 0.869–0.974) of coffee per day compared with those who consumed less than 1 cup per day. On the other hand, participants who had the highest coffee intake (>6 cups per day) were at higher risk of heart failure (HR, 1.209, 95 percent CI, 1.056–1.385).

However, results of sensitivity analyses stratified by gender and smoking status suggested that drinking more than 6 cups of coffee per day was not associated with an increased risk of heart failure. In contrast, the type of coffee exerted a significant effect on the incidence of heart failure (p<0.05).