Coffee; A Two Edge Sword of Good and Bad

First, I am a fan of caffeine, because I as write this post, I have a cup of coffee on my table. Trust me when I say I need it to get my day started sometimes. That said, the opinions, benefits, and drawback on coffee continuously fluctuate with journals showing both positive and negative revelations of coffee consumption.

Drinking a coffee a day can increase physical activity, but at the same time, it can decrease sleep duration, and increase the risk of specific type of heart palpitaion. In all, some researchers and health professionals have come to a conclusion that the health consequences of coffee consumption are more complex than a single outcome.

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One randomized research was conducted on 100 healthy adults in San Fransisco with the average age of 39 years. This participants wore FitBits so as to be able to monitor their steps and their sleep. They also wore blood glucose monitors to help them monitor their blood glucose, as well as wore Electrocardiogram Devices (EKG) to track their heart rhythm. The participants were asked to drink coffee for two days and abstain from it for 2 days, repeating the cycle for two weeks.

The Study showed that on the days when the participants took more coffee, they took over 1000 step more than their usual steps compared to days when they didn't take coffee but then, they slept less about 36 minutes, on days when they took coffee compared to days they didn't take coffee. This showed that increased coffee intake correlate with higher physical activity and decreased sleep duration.

The study didn't just stop at walking and sleeping, it also looked at the relationship between coffee and the heart, and it showed that there was no significant relationship between coffee consumption and premature Atrial contraction although, consuming more than 1 cup of coffee a day led to premature ventricular contraction compared to days without coffees.

This led the researchers to advise that people who experience palpitation of the heart as a result of Premature Venricular Contraction (PVC) should abstain from coffee intake as they can have increased risk of heart weakness and/or heart failure. Also people with family history of heart failure may also stop taking coffee.

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The study showed that people with slower caffeine metabolism experienced greater sleep reduction when they consumed coffee while people with a fast caffeine metabolism had more PVC. But then Dr Marcus says that taking coffee could increase activity in the sympathetic nervous system which can.promote PVC.

It should be noted that the study was not based on a long term note, and the volunteers were healthy so this does not talk about the effect of coffee on people with certain health conditions. Caffeine contain active metabolites like Amenophiline which is can induce arrhythmias when used in high doses.

With this, it is important to know that individual reactions to coffee can vary from one person to another. While it can come with more positive and less negative effect for one person, it can come with a less positive and more negative effect for another. So coffee has both its beneficial and risks including PVCs.

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Reference

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https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2204737
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10167887/
https://wsvn.com/news/us-world