Scientists from the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Tokyo found people with severe high blood pressure who drink two or more cups of caffeinated coffee each day could double their risk of dying from heart disease and stroke.
Half of Americans have high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, and many don’t even know they have it.
High blood pressure develops when blood flows through your arteries at higher-than-normal pressures. Your blood pressure is made up of two numbers: systolic and diastolic.
Systolic pressure is when the ventricles pump blood out of the heart. Diastolic pressure is the pressure between heartbeats when the heart is filling with blood.
For most adults, normal blood pressure is less than 120 over 80 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg).
Your blood pressure is considered high when you have consistent systolic readings of 130 mm Hg or higher or diastolic readings of 80 mm Hg or higher.
People with stage 1 hypertension have blood pressure levels of 130–139/80–89 mm Hg.
People with stage 2 hypertension have a systolic pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher or a diastolic pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher.
People with stage 3 hypertension have a systolic pressure between 140 and 159 mm Hg and a diastolic pressure between 90 and 99 mm Hg.
In the current study, researchers aimed to examine the impacts of coffee and green tea intake on heart disease death among people with severe high blood pressure.
They used data from the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study for Evaluation of Cancer Risk and examined 18 609 participants aged 40 to 79 years.
These people completed a lifestyle, diet, and medical history questionnaire, and health examinations.
The team classified the participants into four blood pressure categories: optimal and normal blood pressure, high‐normal blood pressure, grade 1 hypertension, and grade 2–3 hypertension.
During the 18.9 years of follow‐up, the team found a total of 842 heart disease deaths were found.
Coffee intake was linked to an increased risk of heart disease death among people with grade 2–3 hypertension, compared with non–coffee drinkers.
But such associations were not found in people with optimal and normal, high‐normal blood pressure, and grade 1 hypertension.
The team also found green tea intake was not linked to an increased risk of heart disease death in any blood pressure group.
Based on the findings, the team suggests that heavy coffee intake is linked to an increased risk of heart disease death among people with severe hypertension, but not people without hypertension and with grade 1 hypertension.
In contrast, green tea intake is not linked to an increased risk of heart disease death across all blood pressure categories.
The study was conducted by Dr. Hiroyasu Iso et al and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies that black licorice could cause dangerously high blood pressure, and this common plant nutrient could help reduce high blood pressure.
For more information about blood pressure, please see recent studies about how tea and coffee influence your risk of high blood pressure, and results showing this olive oil could reduce blood pressure in healthy people.
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