Coffee Keeps Arteries Clear

First, the bad news. About 16 million Americans suffer from atherosclerosis, meaning that their arteries are at least partially clogged by plaques. And now the good news: coffee appears to help keep arteries clear. The Tufts Health & Nutrition newsletter reports on a new Korean study that has found that people drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 41 percent less likely to show signs of coronary artery calcium than non-coffee drinkers. The researchers looked at the coffee intake of 25,138 people, average age 41.3, with no symptoms of heart disease. Most were male, and they drank 1.8 cups of coffee a day on average. The researchers found that people who said they drank an average of three to five cups of coffee a day were least likely to have calcification of arteries. Risk fell with increasing consumption from less than one cup a day to one to three cups, to three to five cups—a “dose-response” pattern that lends credence to the findings. Here’s something interesting: people drinking more than five cups of coffee daily actually saw greater risk than moderate coffee drinkers, and no, researchers don’t know the reason for that. Yes, more research is needed.