Coffee may damage heart

Press, 17 October 1986, Page 6

Coffee may damage heart

NZPA-Reuter Boston Men who are heavy coffee drinkers are almost three times more likely to have heart disease than non-drink-ers, according to researchers. After a 38-year study of white male medical students, the researchers said the findings strongly support a link between coffee consumption and heart disease. The team, from Johns

Hopkins Medical Instititions, in New England, found that men who drank one or two cups a day had heart disease rates that were 32 per cent higher than nondrinkers. When a person drank three or four • cups, the rate jumped 90 per cent Among those who drank five or more cups, the rate shot up 149 per cent or times higher than normal.

Regardless of the measure of coffee consumption used, the researchers said, “analyses found that heavy coffee drinkers were almost three times more likely to have coronary heart disease than were nondrinkers.” Although ' caffeine is the chief suspect in most coffee probes, the survey did not assess the use of decaffeinated coffee, or tea, which also contains caffeine.