WHAT’S IN THE NEWS KICKING COFFEE HABIT PRODUCES A DROP IN BLOOD PRESSURE

Healthy men who drank three to six cups of coffee a day experienced a significant drop in blood pressure when they kicked the habit, researchers said.
The researchers think the drop might be larger in people with high blood pressure, who should be advised to give up coffee, said one of the study’s authors, Dr. Robert Superko of Stanford University.
“Maybe this will help them prevent drug treatment” for high blood pressure, said the study’s principal author, Jeff Myll of Stanford. “It’s worth a try”.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Collage of Cardiology.
The new study was done with 120 healthy men with a median age of 45. They were given three to six cups of coffee a day for eight weeks, and then half of them were taken off coffee.
When researchers compared the coffee drinkers with the non-coffee drinker, they found a difference of 5 points in systolic blood pressure-when the heart is pumping- and a difference of about 3 points in diastolic pressure.
- When the heart is relaxed between beats.
Blood pressure was measured with a device that patients wore, so readings could be recorded every half hour throughout the day, the researchers said.
This provides a more accurate assessment of the effect of coffee on blood pressure, they said. No difference in blood pressure was found when patients were measured in the conventional manner.
“Coffee is complex fluid”. “There’s a lot of things that’s going on. It’s not just caffeine”, said Dr. Myll, one of the researchers.
The relationship between decaffeinated coffee and cholesterol “has to do with the chemical differences in the types of beans they use” for decaffeinated coffee.
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