Drinking This May Reduce Fatal Heart Disease Risk, New Study Says

If one of the first things you do each day is pour yourself a cup of something that helps you wake up, now you might have one more reason to keep up your routine. A new study that looked at the diet habits of nearly 469,000 people found that one particular beverage helped reduce the risk of early death from heart disease and stroke—two of the top five leading causes of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A new study was presented Friday at the European Society of Cardiology's annual meeting to reveal three more possible benefits of regular coffee consumption. The research team accessed data from the UK Biobank health database for a study that the lead author stated "is the largest study to systematically assess the cardiovascular effects of regular coffee consumption in a population without diagnosed heart disease." The mean age of the sample was 56 years old, and 55.8% of the participants were women.

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The author, Dr. Judit Simon of the Heart and Vascular Centre of Hungary's Semmelweis University, noted that half a cup to three cups of coffee per day "was independently associated with lower risks of stroke, death from cardiovascular disease, and death from any cause."

Drinkers of that amount of coffee saw a 12% lower risk of early death from any cause, as well as a 17% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, and a 21% lower risk of incident stroke.

To help explain why coffee may help prevent heart disease, stroke, and overall early death, Simon reported that her team had looked at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of over 30,000 participants. Based on those reads, they concluded: "The imaging analysis indicated that compared with participants who did not drink coffee regularly, daily consumers had healthier sized and better functioning hearts. This was consistent with reversing the detrimental effects of aging on the heart."

Other recent studies have suggested that a similarly light-to-moderate amount of coffee consumption is a healthy target for daily drinkers. Get regular coffee news delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter.

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