According to a new study, drinking another cup of caffeinated beverage will not make your heart race.
It is understandable if you avoid drinking coffee since caffeine-containing drugs make you feel jittery. Suppose you avoid drinking coffee in the morning because you are afraid of getting heart palpitations (cardiac arrhythmia). In that case, a recent study suggests it is time to put that anxiety to rest. The reverse may happen.
"When you combine that with some older studies that looked at small populations, it's easy to conclude that coffee consumption causes irregular heartbeats," says Mike Bohl, MD, MPH, CPH, MWC, ELS. "But that isn't the case, according to this recent study."
The study, which was just published in JAMA Internal Medicine, looked at over 386,000 people (about half the population of Delaware)'s coffee consumption over three years and compared it to cardiac arrhythmia. What did the researchers discover? After controlling for demographics, lifestyle behaviors, and diseases and conditions that can cause the heart to flutter, investigators concluded that "each additional cup of habitual coffee ingested was related with a 3% decreased chance of incident arrhythmia," according to CNN.
They looked at genes known to be linked to coffee jitters. The CYP1A2 gene, for example, is known as the "coffee gene" because it aids the body's caffeine metabolism. So, if that gene is fully functional, it simply implies that your body can metabolize and tolerate caffeine at a regular rate.
When that gene is mutated, the rate of caffeine metabolism decreases, increasing the intensity or duration of the "coffee high" experience.
"Some caffeine drinkers may be familiar with the jitters, a tense feeling accompanied by physical movement such as fidgeting. This might also cause you to feel as if your heart is racing or palpitating, says Bohl.
The study, on the other hand, found no link between caffeine and heart problems. So, does this mean you may drink as much coffee as you like every day and not suffer any repercussions? That is not the case.
"It's important to understand that this study is not advising us to drink more coffee or begin drinking coffee to avoid developing arrhythmias," said Zachary D. Goldberger, MD, MS. "However, it should provide greater confidence that moderate coffee drinking is not always detrimental, and that arrhythmias are not invariably the result."