Drinking coffee is good for the heart

The coffee that you take in the afternoon or in the range of work can regulate blood pressure and prevent the emergence of diseases such as heart attack and stroke. Its what demonstrates a study by Japanese researchers and published this week in the scientific meeting of the American Heart Association. Scientists at the University of Ryukyus in Okinawa, conducted a study with 27 volunteers to come to that conclusion.
Participants drank a cup of drink with and without caffeine. Then, researchers have measured blood flow pressure of a finger of participants over 75 minutes. The test was done using a laser and a non-invasive probe. According to the results, subjects who had ingested caffeine had an improvement in blood circulation.
"Coffee significantly improved blood flow in a post- occlusive reactive hyperaemia finger, which is a measure that tells how much smaller the inner lining of blood vessels of the body work. This gives us a clue about how coffee can help improve cardiovascular health," said Masato Tsutsui, a cardiologist and professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Ryukyu and an author of the study.
To give more validity to the study, the scientists used in the research participants who did not have the habit of drinking coffee. After two days of the first part of the study, the experiment was repeated and showed similar results. Masato Tsutsui believes that the composition of coffee helped the "performance" of the bloodstream. "After drinking coffee, pharmaceutical ingredients, including caffeine, are absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and enter the circulation, possibly producing this effect," he says.
The cardiologist emphasizes that the results achieved need to be confirmed by large-scale clinical studies with a larger number of participants. "I believe that discover how the positive effects of coffee work in the human body can lead to a new treatment strategy for cardiovascular disease in the future," he adds.
Fausto Stauffer, coordinator of cardiology at St. Helena Hospital in Brasilia, says that the results achieved are interesting and deal with a beverage that has been investigated frequently in the medical field, but research led by Masato Tsutsui, need new demand of analysis. "It's an interesting study, but we must remember that he demonstrated the effect of caffeine in a very specific parameter, which is the blood flow of the finger of volunteers. Work can only suggest that perhaps this is a mechanism of cardiovascular protection, but there is no way, from this small study, we infer that this is an absolute truth."
Fausto Stauffer says that other recent studies also suggest that moderate coffee consumption does not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and that, on the contrary, may even lessen the chances of the emergence of diseases that compromise the blood vessels and the heart." Work of this type contribute to increase knowledge in the field of cardiology, since they indicate new paths for larger and more elaborate studies to be done," he says.
Source: Sites UAI