By Hannah Morse
The best part of waking up could help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, recent science suggests.
Between three and five 8-ounce cups of regular coffee, or 400 mg of caffeine, can safely be consumed each day by the average adult, according to a scientific statement published this month by the American Heart Association (AHA), which broadly summarized a collection of large cohort studies and smaller randomized controlled trials.
This declaration isn’t necessarily new and is consistent with guidelines in the U.S. and Europe, Northeastern experts said.
While studies on caffeine and coffee over the years report the benefits and warn about the harms, this statement offers an official viewpoint from the AHA to promote awareness of cardiovascular disease and to help develop guidelines, while highlighting what still needs to be studied, like caffeine in energy drinks.
It’s “really a myth-correction more than a new discovery,” said Stephen Wood, associate clinical professor in Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences.
“A lot of patients have been told for decades to cut caffeine for heart health, full stop, and this statement is a useful reminder that coffee drinking was probably never the villain we made it out to be,” he said. A handful of cups of coffee has actually been associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure, hypertension, atrial fibrillation or type 2 diabetes, according to the AHA statement.
“The actual villain, if there is one, is concentrated caffeine in energy drinks,” Wood said.
